The most important task that your sales team has is to ask questions. But are they using these questions to help identify pain points and warm their leads or to avoid meetings with prospects that don't meet their BANT expectations? In this episode, we discuss the risks of over qualifying leads and the benefits of taking more meetings.
Thanks for listening!
The most important task that your sales team has is to ask questions. But are they using these questions to help identify pain points and warm their leads or to avoid meetings with prospects that don't meet their BANT expectations? In this episode, we discuss the risks of over qualifying leads and the benefits of taking more meetings.
Thanks for listening!
Welcome to the grove show where we make it easier for entrepreneurs and leaders to grow their businesses. You'll hear from real leaders with real stories about their successes and failures. So you don't have to make the same mistakes. We won't break out textbooks or talk theory only raw stories from the front lines with actionable takeaways.
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Eric Watkins:Welcome back to the Grow show. I'm here with my partners in grow. Scott scoli. Hello, Jeff winters, everybody. We have a great topic today. Great topic. I know we've been fired up about it. We talked about it last week, we're coming back in today, what we're going to talk about is over qualification throughout the entire sales process. And this is something that's super important, because it's a philosophy that we all, you know, stand by and agree on. And it's important that you don't miss out on opportunities as a business. So we're going to talk about a common common thing these days is that before I go on a sales meeting, or before, even in the prospecting process, before I even pick up the phone for this customer, I want every little thing to be right. And we feel like people are making a big mistake missing out on some opportunities. Scott, why don't you start us off and talk a little bit about just over qualifying right in the beginning?
Scott Scully:Yeah. So first of all, this is going to be super sensitive. And there's going to be a lot of people that are listening that are going to totally disagree with us. Here's why what we're here for exactly. Provide if I will say this, we just finished our sales month, we just added 135 new clients 135. Okay, we made over 24,000 dials, we set 1500 Plus appointments, we had 1000 ish sales pitches. There's a lot of things that went on. But if we were over qualifying, in the beginning stages of our sales process, there's no way that we would have landed on 135 new clients last month, and a total of 5 million in new reoccurring revenue, one month, annual revenue. I and I the only reason I bring that up is because we're gonna get into some shit. And you're gonna say, What the hell are these guys talking about? I don't agree. They should qualify more. But I don't know, this is the only thing we do. We sell on the phone, we sell on the phone for ourselves, and we sell on the phone for others 1700 individual companies around the country, we're working every state, and we're starting to go overseas. It's the only thing that we do for a living, we've screwed it up in the past, to the point where we've actually landed now on some systems processes. And a way to do this where we're pretty successful at it for ourselves and for others. One of the biggest things that happen is people overqualified before they even pick up the phone, it's the data sources, it's the tools. I'm just not going to pick up the phone. You know, this is not me talking Sure. I'm not I'm not picking up the phone. I'm not picking up the phone unless I think it's a perfect qualified lead. Well, first of all, there is no way for you to figure out if it's a perfect qualified lead without picking up the damn phone. My first Aram started first one is, it's faster. Like we've seen it over and over again, where people use all these tools and all these things before they ever even pick up the phone, slows them down, pick up the phone, it's faster. You know, the second thing is, there's no other way to have a live one on one conversation. Like so I can't find out who the decision maker is or buying processes or if someone's in a contract. I can't really find out if they're qualified without having a conversation, right? Nobody ever says It's about the fact that this is practice. Like we get our people thinking about this, pick up the phone, take the repetitions, so that when you land on the person that actually is qualified, you're prepped, you're ready, you're in the mood, you're sharp, you get the job done, right. I look there, there's a lot of things that that go into it. But one thing that people don't consider grabbing a referral, that's the worst thing that happens. Grab a referral, right. So I just think people don't think about it, that people sit there and they do everything that they can to not get on the phone, they buy software, they, they add another list source, and you're just not going to find out whether or not they're actually qualified. Unless you pick up the frickin phone, make the attempts to get the job done. And I frickin hate it. When people overqualified. I hate it when people won't pick up, I hate the shit out of it. I'm so pissed about it. I'm sorry, this is gonna be one of those episodes, we're just getting started. That's okay.
Jeff Winters:I like that he's that that passionate about overqualified, I feel the same way. I when I think about over when I think about over qualifying, I think of the exact opposite of what the right instinct is, the right instinct is, I want as many meetings as I can get. I want as many meetings as I can get, I'll take some good ones against bad ones. But I want as many meetings as I can get. And to Scott's point, the what's the worst thing that happens? If I get a meeting with a prospect who isn't quote unquote, qualified? Yeah, I guess I get a referral. Let me tell you some other things that might have might come of it could be could become a partner could get a vendor recommendation, maybe you get a social follower, maybe you get a social share, maybe you get a brand ambassador, maybe you get a friend, I don't. It's it's hard for me to compute why the knee jerk reaction is isn't more meetings are better. Because that if I can get one thing for you through as we get into this episode, as more meetings are better, you are way better off taking a potentially unproductive meeting, then you are missing a really productive meeting. Because that's that's the real downside, the real downside is, you wouldn't have taken a meeting, and it would have been gold, or you wouldn't have taken a meeting. And they would have referred you to somebody great, or you wouldn't have taken a meeting. And you actually should have that's the real downside. And that is like enormous problems for me, as for us, as leaders of businesses like to think about the opportunity cost of not taking a meeting that you actually should have taken,
Scott Scully:you know, it was crazy about the car business. And we did not overqualified, we took every meeting, picked up the phone had conversations, but the amount of data that we found out on the marketplace, do these phone calls, like who's running these dealerships to different ad budgets, you know, people that were jumping from dealership to dealership, the dealers on the move, who we should go to who they recommend that we talked to the market research that that we landed on, because we were willing to pick up the phone, as opposed to not picking up the phone and trying to over qualify and figure out who we should call. It was crazy how much more successful we were and how important the phone was as a tool in the sale sales process.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, I think to me, what stands out? You know, I call it the iceberg mentality. So you think about an iceberg. 10 to 15% is above the water. 85 to 90% is below the surface. And when we reach out over the phone or email, it's the first interaction, what are you going to do, I'm not telling anybody anything over the phone worth value. So we're trying to qualify a prospect before we've even fully opened them up, before we even fully have have the guard down and can ask them the right questions. And in that case, you're just missing out on an opportunity. You may hear from the call the 10%. Oh, this is a terrible call. I don't want to go on this. But then you get out, you start asking a couple questions, then you realize, well, this small business has$10 million in the bank that they just got from the business they sold previously. They have goals to grow this thing from 1 million to 10 million over the next three years. They have just plenty of opportunities. We've just seen cases where this has been the case what's an example of you know, a sales meeting Scott, where you've gone into it thinking wow, this is going to be a complete waste of my time. And then you walk out realizing Wow, I'm glad I took this meeting.
Scott Scully:Okay, so we're separating right no over qualification before setting the meeting. Now No other qualification, potentially after lead his hand handed salesperson. Yep. I have an incredible one. I was putting this guy off because it was a dealer that sold 40 cars a month. And I knew that. And I had some really good meetings going on in Denver. This guy was up in Greeley, Colorado. And I just kept putting them off. Right. And I called him a couple of times. And he was super gracious. Like, it's okay, we're up here in Greeley, you know, you got some things going on. And at the end of the day, we'd seen six or seven people have super tired, we weren't gonna go. Like we literally weren't gonna go like why would we even go it's Greely, population small. We get up there. It's a guy from a bigger dealer chain in Phoenix, had a shitload of money to spend. And, like immediately signed with us, the guy 40 cars a month, five years later, had an entire auto complex, like an auto mall in Greeley, Colorado, that same guy, it was a guy that spent like $5,000 with us a month to start, which for that size dealership at that time on direct mail was too much. And he went to him be in like 100 to$120,000 a month direct marketing account. And it was crazy. Because we decided to like, who knows, let's go up, let's not over qualify this person, they only sell 40 cars. But let's go up and have a conversation ended up being one of those people that did have the funding. Totally good operator, and it ended up being one of our best clients. And in fact, was the reason that we got into Chrysler, that one meeting that one day and what we were doing for that dealership was the reason why we then got millions from Chrysler corporate, that one guy,
Jeff Winters:you know what I hear all the time right now. And I see it everywhere. You got to say no to stuff. You got to say no, you got to really protect your time. You got to say no, you got to say no, you got to say no, you know what, you don't got to say no to sales meetings. You don't got to say no. And I'm and I'm and I'm half kidding, and I'm half not. But I see so much out in the ethos that people are talking in on social about, you're gonna say no, you got to protect your time not to sales meeting that that's to everything other than sales means protect your time if you want. But don't say no to sales meetings, particularly. And I know we have listeners out there that are just getting going, just starting their businesses, entrepreneurs, that motion will create a motion like that will create momentum, when I started the business, the best thing I did was get out of my house, and go and meet with as many people as I possibly could. And you'll be shocked at the momentum that you create just by taking meetings and I just I don't want people to get confused. I know it's it's out there in the ethos, it's out there everywhere. Protect your time say no, say no. Say no. Don't say no to sales meetings. Don't do it. I
Scott Scully:totally agree. Totally agree with that thing that you said.
Unknown:Exact now. I agree with a lot of what you say.
Eric Watkins:What do you hear a lot about, you hear a lot of
Jeff Winters:bonus episodes, all the things doesn't agree with? Don't caveat. Say you agree.
Unknown:I do wholeheartedly agree? Absolutely.
Eric Watkins:So what we hear a lot about is this is our customer profile, we have defined it. And what people aren't doing is because of all that information that's out there. They're not looking at it as who wants my services, like who out there has money for my services. They're saying, Who do I want to work with. And I understand that. And I think you can grow a good business from that philosophy. But if you really want to grow, you really want to scale, you find out where the opportunity is. And then you reverse engineer what you're delivering to those products. I think about our we work in the IT space a lot. And this is an interesting concept, by the way, because one of our biggest differentiators at abstract is the fact that we actually qualify meetings, we set qualified meetings, which is a lot of companies, all meetings, a lot of lead generation companies, all meetings aren't the same. They don't all meet a certain parameter. So that is a big selling point for us. However, I still feel like customers are customers that leverage us best. Open up the parameters, and we have more trust, because they're going to get out in front of more opportunities. And with that, there's an example of you know, typically it companies if you're in this day and age, they want to target 15 users up to 250. Some go above that, but majority that's the sweet spot. So we work with 150 IT companies, they all have the same sweet spot. So who's not getting served anybody from 10 to 15 users, anybody from 250 to 1000 users. So we had a client come on. And he said, I want everything that everybody's not going after. So he literally wants the opposite. And he's in his, his thought process is genius. He goes, those people aren't getting phone calls, because people aren't even been attempting to call them. And if they do, they're not showing up to the meeting. So they're having a bad taste in their mouth. They're easier customers to convert. And here's my Okay, Eric, that sounds good. But I'm in the business of making money. RTO CES, which is stands for turnover to client, so if it doesn't meet our qualified qualifiers, we turn it over to client and they get to say if it's worth their time or not, our to seize our 10% of all of our clothes business as a company, and they convert at 2x, the rate that our normal appointments do, just to back up the underserved part of the market. So not only are they 10% of our total sales, they also are that much easier to convert when you go out on them. And there's, you know, we've talked about it, there's plenty opportunity when you go out on these meetings.
Scott Scully:That's awesome.
Eric Watkins:Is that crazy?
Scott Scully:Awesome. I love the in it in particular, you have these people that are under 10, or 15 or 20. Users, a lot of those are on their way. Sure What an unbelievable time to start the relationship and grow with them. And everybody's knocking that group out. And in essence, kind of over qualifying. Sure, we're making a rigid customer profile, they can still have a goal of having 10 Plus or 15 Plus, but a lot of the people that they're going to get into that bucket are going to be the people that started that have the funding that are on their way up. And they're literally not going out and talking to them because they're to your users short. They're like a 13 instead of a 15. I can't talk to him. Well, I mean, they're going to add three people next month. Right? It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I think our clients that have opened up the qualifiers a little more that people that have been with us the longest, and they're selling the most,
Eric Watkins:they're just getting more out of it. And I feel like there's this, I call it the gumball machine mentality, I put a quarter in, I get a gumball out. And it's a very, they turn it into a very transactional relationship versus this is a partner. Same way we look at our sales enablement team. If we over qualify, we're not going to magically get these 100 Amazing leads on top of it, we're just going to miss out on those 100 leads that we didn't set. So how about we leverage this partnership and get the most out of one another and treat us as an extension of your business? And I think you know, this goes to a lot of things.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, first of all, and I recognize you the gumball mentality, the iceberg philosophy.
Eric Watkins:I'm running out of I'm impressed. Are you getting over analogy over there? Impossible. Impossible.
Jeff Winters:The audience wants more. I want more we expected on the next rotation. I'm glad you brought up our sales enablement team. I think this brings us to a really important point. So our sales enablement function here, whatever you call it, at your company, where the outsource it with the INSOURCE at sales enablement here is those who set meetings for our salespeople. And there is an ongoing debate around what qualifies as a meeting for the salespeople for the salespeople to say okay, this is a legit meeting from my sales enablement function, my sales development function or whatever, and BANT, her BANT band has been used for decades as a qualification mechanism. If this prospect has budget, meaning they have money for whatever project service product authority, meaning it's the ultimate decision maker, they have need, meaning they have a problem that you can solve. And they have timing meaning they have some defined timeline for when they're going to buy whatever product or service or project that you've cold called them out of the blue to buy, which they already magically have. That is the qualification hurdle that you have to jump over in order for it to be qualified. And that to me is insane. Like that is insane. That you would hold people to that level of, of qualification like To me that's just nuts. Because in this day and age, if you have budget authority need and timing and you haven't Googled a solution, like what do you do? Like what are you doing? What are you doing? What are you doing? Like you're waiting for someone to No, no, no if as sellers and I'm speaking as you know, a guy who walked up the hill both ways too. Go to school, I got my own meetings, give me somebody who has a problem that I can solve, period. If you have a problem, and I can solve it, that's a qualified meeting for me. Because I think we can all speak as those who have budget ownership and authority, I'll find the money, I'll find the timing, we'll, we'll figure that out. If I have a burning problem, and you can solve it, that is a qualified meeting. Because I don't have budget and timing, laying around for problems, I haven't fully thought through or identified, I'll find that stuff.
Eric Watkins:That's a great point. I feel like band is very useful as a sales tool, not a qualifier. So I think they're using it in the wrong spot, they're using it up front. And what you're doing is you're actually limiting the opportunity of what makes it into your sales funnel. But you should be using it and coaching your sales reps on how to use it throughout the sales process, post presentation to get that information. Because you're gonna move close, it's gonna move you closer to the sale. Like there's a reason it's around. Yes, it's true. But why up front? Why up front was someone who hasn't been doing sales, right? Someone who's who's never sold before,
Scott Scully:I actually never thought about it this way. But I totally agree. You should fill up those buckets. And when they're full, they should be ready to close. It's your goal to show them budget, and they didn't have to have it before you they just have to feel like they solve a problem. Right? Yeah, you should get to the ultimate decision maker. But you might go through a process of two or three influencers to get there, right. The needs all about like you said, if you're going to solve my problem, I have a need like right now keeps me up at night. And the timing, same thing. Like you should have to fill up those buckets in one year and 100% in those categories. As a salesperson I should know then that I should be able to close this person. Now I've satisfied that. But it's not a lead qualifier. Yeah. In fact, it's a shitty lead qualified shitty lead, that's gonna be the sensitive part that people are hearing. Sure, but it is it's a shitty, qualified shitty
Jeff Winters:qualifier. And people are holding their sales development sales enablement teams to it. And that sucks for them. Alright. And you're missing out on opportunities. It's not fair.
Eric Watkins:So we're all a little one sided here. So I'll play the antagonist. And you guys can respond. But
Scott Scully:no, why would you do
Jeff Winters:that? It's impossible. On this one is?
Scott Scully:Let's go. This will be the fun party sides?
Jeff Winters:I don't think so. One side,
Eric Watkins:I'm a sales rep. I, my argument would be the reason why I would want something BANT qualified, is because I only have a limited amount of time to sell. So why would I waste my time on non qualified leads? That's the objection. That's the objection. Okay. Really wasted time wasted time is the logical, I think
Scott Scully:it goes, I think it goes back to some of those things that we started off with. Because there's no better way to learn the market. Like even if you don't end up selling this person, you can learn a lot about other people in the market, other companies things that they're doing. Because it might not be the decision maker, but you can influence the decision making process. So why the hell wouldn't you build a relationship with that person, because you can find some things out about the company. And even if it's not qualified, or it's a no noun doesn't mean it's a no later. So now you're getting it into the relationship building process. And it's more of a top of the funnel thing that's going on, but you need people in all stages. Right? It's just because you need a predictable pipeline. And if you're going to have a predictable pipeline, you need people in all phases of that pipeline. And they're trying to just like cheat. They need the cheat code to have all of them down here at the bottom ready to pop in if you're going to be ultimately successful in sales. That's not how it works. You've got people in different stages. They don't all buy right away. You've got to build relationships and follow up process over time. And sorry, you're an idiot. If you're overqualified, and you're not going on every possible sales meeting that you can write.
Unknown:Or are you going to play devil's advocate too?
Eric Watkins:Am I an idiot too?
Jeff Winters:So this is a good devil's advocate position. And let me say to the salespeople out there, we love I mean, this we grew up in this so we love you. And if I were a salesperson, I would request bank qualified meetings to that sounds pretty good. If I could only meet with people who had the budget buy my stuff, who wanted to buy my stuff who had the authority to buy my stuff and had already planned to buy my stuff? Count me in. It's like a
Scott Scully:golden egg. Yeah,
Jeff Winters:that's order taking. And that's great. And I would love to take orders and a lot of situations, I mean that any particular way. But that's order tick. I'm talking about selling, I'm talking about selling, which is creating need. And by the way, the other thing about being banned qualified is if you're banned qualified, that's probably not a proprietary deal for you. Like, I want to get a proprietary deal where I am creating a need that doesn't already exist, so that I can be the only player or at least the first player in that potential sales situation. And so for the salesperson, I hear you, we love you, I want you to have banned qualified meetings too. It would be great as a salesperson of yesteryear to have only been qualified meetings. But there are advantages to not it six to 10 people, on average, in a complex b2b buying decision, six to 10, you don't know who that is, before you go into that meeting. And also, as a former owner of a company, and now President of a division, there are certain decisions from an authority perspective, that I have the authority to make that I'm never going to have an intro meeting with you, I'm never going to happen. If you want to sell something into our division to this business, I'm never going to have an intro meeting with you. But if somebody brings it to me, I'll certainly entertain it and talk about it. So the net of it is, you're losing opportunities, you're missing out on proprietary deals, deals that are only yours, because you're creating that need. And you got to default to take a default to action default to taking more meetings. You'd be better off
Scott Scully:because you're close. And I only like salespeople that actually close. So I know you're trying to actually make all salespeople happy by saying we love you. But I actually don't love salespeople that don't sell. Is that bad to say?
Jeff Winters:No. That was appealing to our broader audience.
Eric Watkins:Okay, you liked him as a person, just not a salesperson? That's hard for me.
Jeff Winters:He's not sure. Scott can't divorce the two. Okay, I
Scott Scully:have a hard time separating the two
Jeff Winters:he said salesperson. It's just one word for him.
Scott Scully:Of course, say I have actually I'm just sitting here trying to think of a bad salesperson that I like, as a person and I can't is that bad? Oh, now you're now we're gonna get sensitive.
Jeff Winters:I do. I know exactly what the guy is,
Scott Scully:like, people that are positive, that are hard working and get shit done. I have a hard time as a person separating somebody that's not taking their life and making the most of it. So I'm just being honest, I'm not typically hanging around with people that aren't getting shit done. I want to be motivated in life. That's a thing. Surround yourself with successful people and you'll be successful. Hang out with people that aren't you won't. I don't hang out with a lot of bad salespeople. And I don't think I probably am ever going to. I don't love them. And that's me being wrong. Honest. Sorry. I just, we've just lost two
Jeff Winters:followers lost two followers. But we gained, we gained all the great salespeople. That's good. Okay, so let me pose this question. I'm a sales leader at a company. And my boss came in listen to this podcast, this probably happens is going to happen a lot loves it. And is like, Hey, we're done with this over qualification thing that's over. I don't want to do it. We want you guys to take all the meetings, like talk about selling this to your salespeople. And making sure you don't have a lot of complaining about bad meetings or this like how do you do that part of it? Because like that can be that's hard because sales people to your point are gonna go spend time on meetings that are perfectly qualified. What do you do? How do you do that?
Eric Watkins:I think first you, you start with the why, why would we make this change? We've I can promise you as a business, we're never going to make a change that we don't feel like is going to increase our sales. That would just be done. We would never do that. So if we feel like this is going to increase our sales, what will that also increase our sales commission. So it will create more opportunity for them to sell. We wouldn't do it if we didn't think so. This is going to be the philosophy I would burn the bridge. I think the bridge when you when you get a gumball the icebergs the bridge is burned. The bridge is burned. I would burn the bridge. We're not going back. This is is our philosophy as a company. And then that way, you don't have a world where they can just complain and go back to the old way because it was more comfortable. Then you start recognizing good examples, you start giving people more leads, who are leading by example and doing that, and you share the success stories, they're all going to have a meeting, where they thought it was a waste of their time, and it's going to turn out to be the million dollar Chrysler deal that it led to. And then as soon as that happens, because it will 10% of our deals come from leads that our clients didn't want in the contract, but ultimately gave to them, then you make a big deal out of it, because those, that's 10%, we're missing out on 10% of sales, I promise you, your sales enablement team is not missing out on the good leads, they fall into your lap, you set them up, if someone's back qualified, they're gonna set the appointment themselves, yes, we're not missing out on those. So that's how I would sell them, we're going to sell the 10% of clients we're not selling right now, it's going to lead to more money, more opportunity, and we're going to help more clients.
Scott Scully:Yeah, I just keep coming back to the same set of five things and why it's faster. There's just no quicker route to knowing. A lot like knowing that it's somebody that you want to meet with, right, by picking up the phone. Instead of trying to determine whether or not you should, before we pick up the phone, there's no better way to find out the data. Right, you're gonna just find out everything that you need, including what the hell's going on in the market. So if you never sell the person that you called, you're going to learn about the market that you're calling into, it's going to give you more power. When you make the next call, and you land on a qualified prospect, you're just going to have more data, data's power in the sales process, you're going to build a relationship. So it's going to be the beginning stages of relationship. Not everybody's gonna say yes, now. So it's a perfect touchpoint to build a relationship. Even if it's unknown now, or unqualified, now, you're going to look, data's inaccurate. So no matter what they think they're not going to land on this perfect data, and know ultimately, who's going to sign and who hasn't. They got to pick up the phone, they've got to ask some questions, they got to actually determine that for themselves. If there was a perfect list. While we might not be around, right, as a business, it's practice. Make the attempts, I don't care if they're, they're qualified or not. Or even if you're going out, if you're a sales rep, going out on a meeting, that might not be the best prospect, put a couple of those in the beginning of the day, practice, get razor sharp, put your frickin best prospects at the end of the day, and they don't have a shot. And then my bonus, one is worst case scenario, you get a referral. Worst case scenario, you're asked the question, okay, fine. Who should I be talking to at another organization? Everybody's got another successful friend, and you land on setting more meetings that way? That's why I think ultimately, somebody should do it. And they shouldn't. overqualified. That's the most of that is the using the phone and pre meeting scenario. But I've been sold on it for years.
Jeff Winters:Yeah, I just, I think it is a really important mindset shift. Because I don't care what company you're at. If you have folks who are getting meeting set for them, salespeople, we're getting meeting set for them. The day you start getting meetings set for you is the day you start hearing about meetings that aren't good, that is going to happen. And it happens at 100% of the places I've been at. Because it's it's inevitable. And I think that the take home here for me is the philosophy that I would want to impart is there is no bad meeting that someone put on your calendar, there is no bad meeting that somebody else put on your calendar. They worked hard to get that meeting. That is a meeting that could result in at Scott to your point in any number of things. And you are way better off talking to some unqualified prospects, then you are missing an amazing prospect. Yeah, period. Always, as an individual, as a sales organization, you're better off talking to less qualified prospects than you are missing an incredible prospect.
Scott Scully:I'm thinking about just my history across three companies and some of these big, chunkier, awesome accounts. And actually quite a few of them. Were ones But we might have skipped over. Right? Just it's kind of fascinating when I, when I look backwards, actually,
Jeff Winters:I bet if you talk to a bunch of sales leaders, they'd all say the same thing. They all have huge chunky accounts that they might not have taken it or they decided the last minute to take or they could have given us somebody else. Don't do it.
Eric Watkins:Yeah, one thing I think we should talk about, because a lot of people may not even have a sales enablement team, right? They're just in a smaller business infrastructure, they may be the owner selling themselves, may be the first salesperson, they're out getting their own leads, they probably have a website where they're getting some leads from, I think it's important, especially when you're at that size, that you go look at everything, it's easy to see a web lead come through, you look up the company. So let's say you're an HVAC company, you look up the company, and it looks like a shack that's 1000 square feet. Go on the meeting. Who knows that shack, maybe the shed to the million dollar facility across the road, and Google Images had had it mixed dumped, it's just that you said this earlier, the upside is just way more sweet than the The downside is sour.
Scott Scully:They're they're building a tribe, that people aren't even thinking about the fact that you go and you talk to somebody, you don't sell them. But they loved the interaction. Like wow, Eric came out. And he talked to me about this unbelievable service. It's not for me right now, I, I don't think I can find the money. But he was so professional. And I gotta tell you, it made sense. And if I run into anybody, I'm going to tell people about him. But they're they're built there building advocates or a tribe, you see as many people as possible, you get them thinking about you, you get them wanting to help you. That's where it doesn't really matter if that one's going to buy or not, it's another person that's going to go tell people to buy from you. It's a tribe. And it's not looked at that way. It's looked at as a waste of time.
Jeff Winters:It's tough it is, is one of those things that gets me so fired up. Because I've set my own meetings, I've set meetings for other people, I've walked in those shoes. And the fact that it's hard to set an outbound meeting, it's really hard over email over phone, it's hard to get an inbound lead, that you wrote some content that somebody read, and was so inspired, that they went to your website, and was so inspired that they put in their phone number, their email, so hard to do, especially in this day and age, when people have infinite options, infinite channels, infinite vehicles to go ahead and figure out how to solve their problem. Where pick up the phone is so rare, answering an email is hard. It's, it's those people that you got to think about, because if you're a salesperson, and you and you're lucky enough or fortunate enough to have people that do that for you, you need those people running a million miles an hour in your direction you want them on your side,
Eric Watkins:we haven't even talked about that. You want them on your team, that's a huge, that's a huge, huge point, because they know have a sales enablement team. Oh,
Jeff Winters:they know. They know when they when they're on the phone, or they're in the inbox. They know, nobody knows, like, they know which ones are gonna
Eric Watkins:be good. Sure. And they also know when you have their back, and you're willing to take some of the ones that are a little rougher around the edges and grab them and give them your full effort. It's just a it's a huge difference for the their mentality. And so from that perspective alone, you're going to increase your sales just from having a better more fired up sales enablement team say all the meetings are a waste of time. It's worth it for that. It's worth it for literally that alone. Because it's such a tough job. I mean, it's 100 calls sometimes per appointment in some industries. You've either made those before, and you know what we're talking about, or you have it or you're a salesperson now and you already forgot. Which they all forget, which is fine. We love them. We're not talking about talking bad about sales people just we always love the words. It's apparently
Scott Scully:Apparently not. I'm being very straightforward and suggesting that I don't like bad salespeople. It's fair.
Jeff Winters:I'm starting to get that message.
Scott Scully:You're a great salesperson.
Jeff Winters:Not that well.
Scott Scully:So if someone's listening to this, obviously, some probably agree and some disagree. But for those that are looking to go and I changed a couple of things, have some takeaways in this whole don't qualify, or you'll kill your sales scenario that we're in the middle of here. What are some takeaways?
Eric Watkins:I think the clarity around when we say don't over qualify, you can ask the questions. Just don't not go on the meeting. Don't turn over every stone, don't leave any stone unturned. You can ask the questions to get the information, but go out and make sure you make the most of every single meeting. Because you don't know. Like, you have no idea.
Scott Scully:What's your top one?
Jeff Winters:My top takeaway is to Eric's point, default to taking the meeting. But I guess, beyond that, that that's the What the How is resist the urge, which is so easy to say, I don't want to go on this meeting. Because of this qualification criteria that's been put in place for 10 years, it's like no, like, how we did it is irrelevant to how we should do it. And times have changed. And in this day, and age is really, really hard to get a meeting. So if you're a person in authority, or in management or in leadership, and your team has some sort of qualifications, lose, that's on you. Your numbers will thank you. I
Scott Scully:love it. I think what I'm going to add is start tracking and celebrate building the tribe. You're building your brand, and the more people you're talking to the better. You know, because they're going to be out in the marketplace, helping you build your reputation. And there's huge power in that. So that's one that I would go with,
Eric Watkins:find a product or service that you can sell to everybody. Amazon, one of their biggest things was we are we are not going to be exclusive, we're going to be inclusive, we're going to find out a way to get as many customers as possible. It worked for them. It's a different industry that a lot of us, but find the underserved parts of your market, what can you do to really separate yourself? Because you're going to have the easiest path, the path of least resistance to sell those clients. So
Scott Scully:get yourself in the door? Sure. Take Take something separated, that a lot of people could buy as a as an EN. And then build from there is what you're
Eric Watkins:saying. Exactly. And you don't you don't even have that data or information to come up with that new product or service. If you don't take the Demeter
Scott Scully:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff Winters:Be nice to the people who are setting your meetings. They are the energy, they're the fire that fuels your entire revenue engine and ultimately, your entire growth engine. Be be kind to those folks. Because those jobs are hard. And they're They're busting their butts. And it's you can build a company without him. But boy, it's a whole lot easier with people setting you awesome meetings in it. Yeah, sure is. Absolutely.
Eric Watkins:Alright, guys, great discussion. I feel like we we beat it to death, that's for sure. Don't ever over qualify your meetings,
Scott Scully:for we made some new friends and might have picked up a couple of enemies. But we're saying what we think, right?
Eric Watkins:We're saying well works. Yeah, it's a better way to put it for sure. At the end of the day, if you're bringing on over 135 new clients, if you're doing over 1000 sales presentations a month, which is a 13.5% close rate. By the
Jeff Winters:way, all clients of all shapes sizes, fortune 101 to two, I mean, we're like spanning the gamut huge sample size,
Eric Watkins:tell us we're wrong. But if you're not doing that, don't say shit.
Jeff Winters:After you like it, subscribe, tell us. Like, Subscribe first. Then tell us we're wrong.
Scott Scully:Subscribe. Rate, Subscribe, then disagree. That's been a fun discussion. All right. So I would like to go on record and saying that there might be a bad salesperson that I would like as a human. As a human. I'd probably I mean, probably not.
Jeff Winters:I think it's an effort. It's probably effort. Yeah. People that don't try because there's people that are in sales that aren't in the right seat. Yeah. The right person Roxy,
Scott Scully:okay. I like people that are positive and motivated and work hard. And I guess someone could not be a good salesperson. People go into another role. Right. And I would love them. Yeah.
Eric Watkins:People that you'd like people that live by our values. Yes. And you don't like people that go
Scott Scully:So I'd like to retract my statement that I don't let the record that I don't hear on I don't hate all salespeople. I hate negative non productive, not get the most out of life people
Eric Watkins:Sure, broader broader products etc thanks for listening to the grove show, leave us a review and let us know how we're doing or if there's a topic you'd like us to cover in the future.
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