Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 579 | Scaling without soul crushing: how teach-back, AI coaching and culture drive real sales performance

Transcript

Ep. 579 | Scaling without soul crushing: how teach-back, AI coaching and culture drive real sales performance · The Prompt

0:01
This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
0:04
pressing B2B go to market challenges.
0:07
Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
0:09
marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
0:12
strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
0:18
Hello everyone, and welcome to the latest in the award-winning
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on Base podcast series. I'm your host, Paul Gibson and
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we always look for different topics to discussion.
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This time we've also decided to take it up a level by having
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more than one guest on the session.
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So I'm excited that today I'm talking with both Harry Flasty
0:36
and Dave Thompson from SWADA with us to discuss an
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interesting topic, scaling without soul crushing real
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stories of go to market growth That worked, which sounds to me
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like a really interesting topic. Hi both.
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Excited to get up on the show with you both today and thanks
0:51
for coming on. Thanks for having us this
0:54
morning. Good stuff.
0:56
So before we get into the topic, I think it's a really
0:58
interesting podcast today. Start with a simple question.
1:01
If you don't mind, could you just both take us through your
1:04
journeys to where you are today and what you're currently doing
1:07
a little bit about Swader? Yeah, so I'll start my journey.
1:11
So bit of a rags to riches story.
1:13
Born in Scotland 1969, dyslexic, never really going to do
1:18
anything. Left school at 16 without doing
1:21
any qualifications. The 86 decided to become a
1:24
soldier and join the army status quo.
1:26
Were playing you're in the army now and the army was really good
1:29
for me in terms of it taught me about discipline, structure,
1:33
control processes and also how to box.
1:36
I became a boxing champion in the army, which was which was
1:39
really good. Left the army at 21, became a
1:41
soldier so became a a factory worker, worked in Doctor Martin
1:45
shoe factory. Do you remember the old Doctor
1:47
Martin's wear boots that worked in there?
1:49
And while I was working in there, I read a book by a guy
1:53
called William Clement Stone and it was called The Success System
1:57
that Never fails. And I remember sitting in the
2:00
boxes in 1990, Bobby Brown was singing My Prerogative and I'm
2:04
sitting in these in the boxes in the shoe factory.
2:07
And I learned about positive mental attitude and, and that
2:11
being something you actually do, not something that you think
2:14
most people think of. Positive mental attitudes is
2:16
like a thought structure in your head and I thought you actually
2:19
need to do something. So I went out, reached out to
2:22
William Clement Stone and got a job as a financial advisor, left
2:26
the shoe factory and started learning about systems within
2:30
sales, started learning about Socrates aiming positive mental
2:33
attitude. And then the following year I
2:36
struggled in that job. The following year I got a job
2:37
as a mortgage advisor. I couldn't even spell mortgage.
2:40
I didn't know it had AT in it, but I'll get, I'll get this job
2:43
as a mortgage advisor. In my first week working at
2:45
Connell Mortgage Services, I earned 500 lbs.
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And my first thought was how do I keep this job?
2:53
Because earning 130 lbs in the shoe factory was one thing, but
2:57
earning 500 lbs in 1991 was, you know, was £20,000 a year.
3:00
That was a lot of money and and I started studying everything
3:03
sat behind sales. And from now I went on to become
3:06
the top financial advisor in the mortgage industry, built a
3:09
business where we, you know, we had a couple 100 people working
3:12
for us and we trained our people utilizing teach back and
3:16
utilizing mind maps and we taught them on everything that
3:19
sat behind sales from pitching, framing, negotiating and
3:22
influence. And that took us into when I'd
3:24
sold my business, creating a training business to teach
3:27
people how to, to, to be great at sales and how to scale their
3:30
salespeople by teaching them in the same way the Army taught me,
3:34
like standard operational procedures, all the component
3:37
parts. And in the same way that in the
3:39
shoe factory they had a way of doing things out of track.
3:41
That's why we built our financial advisors build
3:44
business and scaled it. And then that's what we have now
3:46
within Sueder. It's a learning management
3:48
system where people learn something and they teach back
3:50
what they learn. Yeah, that's, it's a story and
3:52
it worked. And fundamentally it worked and
3:54
it worked. So happy days.
3:56
And it's, yeah, fun. Awesome journey and I still have
3:59
a pair of DMS so that's so my age as well now there.
4:02
You go. Follow that, Barry.
4:04
Yeah, well, mine is a little bit more traditional.
4:06
I'm sort of your classic, you know, came out of uni, went, I
4:10
did my languages and tourism and business degree.
4:13
So I went straight to Europe where I kind of spent a long
4:16
glob of years doing start-ups, digital agencies in the Middle
4:19
East, UK, lived in Holland 12 years and Portugal and
4:23
everywhere in between. So quite entrepreneurial from an
4:25
early age. I was back in London after Qatar
4:28
and then a guy I went to school with got me involved in JIT a
4:31
bit, where I stayed 13 years as well.
4:33
So proper enterprise grade stuff, you know, working at San
4:37
Francisco, running EMEA, working across all kinds of ecosystems,
4:41
obviously Salesforce record, NetSuite, Microsoft, BMC.
4:44
So I've probably done every sales training you can do from
4:47
medic to sales, value framework, selling and being sheep dipped
4:51
and in the classic enterprise way.
4:53
And I think since I left last year, I've been doing a lot of
4:56
advisory work now for scale UPS. There's three or four of them in
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My Portfolio, corporate finance VCs helping them with their
5:03
portfolio companies, getting into automation, deep tech and
5:07
you know, laterally. Interestingly, a couple of
5:09
interesting projects have come across my desk now as well with
5:12
football and Ministry of Sound. So it seems like all the brands
5:16
in the world are getting behind this AI thing and you know, from
5:19
your traditional enterprise stuff to scale UPS, they're
5:21
getting putting funding and doing trade missions to, you
5:24
know, going international now because of the cost of setting
5:28
up a business nowadays is pretty much what a hundreds of the
5:31
costs in the old days where you'd have to raise money, hire
5:33
people, but get an office. So it's a pretty interesting
5:36
time at the minute. And then last year's how I got
5:39
back and working with Dave as well, we set up all good people.
5:42
So there's more than just selling and corporate land as,
5:45
you know, putting the human connection with the technology
5:48
together. So we've built our own little
5:49
community of a few 100 people in there as well, plus we're all in
5:52
different AI community groups. I mean, I can't keep up with it
5:55
all. It's crazy.
5:56
So here today, really curious how we're going to go through
5:59
this and talk about the evolution of sales and marketing
6:02
and teach back and all the different things that we're
6:04
seeing so we can share with your your community.
6:06
Yeah, thank you for that. There are two interesting
6:08
stories and I'm already thinking there's nowhere near enough time
6:11
to cover what we've got to cover off today.
6:13
So I can see this is going to be a series rather than the one
6:16
off. But to try and I suppose start
6:19
off the conversation, you both have very interesting
6:22
backgrounds or what, what do you think it was that bought you?
6:24
I suppose both to focus on the intersection of sales execution,
6:28
AI and go to market strategies. I don't know who wants to go
6:32
first. I'll leave that up to you.
6:33
Well, Dave, you've always done it, you know, from selling
6:35
financial services, I suppose, and how I got to know Dave as I
6:38
was when I had my first stepchild, my daughter years
6:41
ago, we moved into Dave's house and he heard I was working with
6:44
Salesforce. So that's how I got to know
6:46
Dave. And then we've kind of kept in
6:48
touch in Northamptonshire here since then.
6:50
You know, David's built an interesting business because
6:53
you've kind of blended all the sales and disciplines and the
6:56
great Robert Cardini and influence and persuasion and
6:59
you've been able to blend all that, haven't you?
7:00
I suppose into now rolled up into an app called Sueder.
7:03
And I've spent my career straddling 2 wheels, I guess
7:06
Paul, you know, the human side of sales leadership and then the
7:09
technical, technological sort of disruption if you will.
7:11
So you know, I think over those 1213 years I closed 2025 million
7:16
in ARR. You know, I saw first hand that
7:18
6 test isn't just about technology, it's about how you
7:21
build culture and the team and the enablement around that piece
7:24
as well. And I think, you know, over the
7:25
last few years as an integrator, you know, you're selling into
7:29
multiple vertical sectors. So it could be retail,
7:31
e-commerce, manufacturing, law firms, football clubs, airports,
7:35
Ng OS. And then each of those has a
7:37
sort of particular nuance. And then when you throw in the
7:39
lingo of technology, whether it's Salesforce or ITSM or
7:43
NetSuite, it very quickly for me, it's almost like a Rubik's
7:46
Cube. So you've kind of got to, you
7:48
know, learn and adapt and absorb so much information about a
7:51
particular industry. And also as a seller, it's
7:54
trickier because there's new stuff coming out all the time.
7:56
So then you throw in multiple regions, languages and buying
7:59
behaviors. So the whole thing gets, you
8:02
know, pretty crazy pretty quickly.
8:03
And we spent a lot of money on command of the sale, command of
8:06
the message. We were flying people in from
8:08
around the world. We spent as a half, $1,000,000
8:10
on it. And you know, within 2-3 years,
8:13
a lot of people have left the organization.
8:15
So that sort of approach to sales training back then was
8:18
what it was, but the world's kind of moved on.
8:20
And I know working with Dave laterally as well and agile
8:23
stuff and what they're doing is pretty powerful stuff when you
8:26
see how this is implemented and can be quite transformative.
8:29
So from my perspective, I guess the two things, it's about
8:34
optimal, what optimal in terms of the approach and also
8:37
simplicity. Like I feel for people today
8:40
because the world's a change in place.
8:42
Everything's going faster, you know, and if you're trying to
8:45
run a business, you know, what was good three months ago isn't
8:48
it's not good today because there's something new and it's
8:50
changed. And you look and you go, how do
8:52
you keep up? And optimally, how do you keep
8:55
up? And then also how do you make it
8:57
simple? You know, that they're the two
8:58
big questions. You know, if you're running the
9:00
sales team, you can, how do we keep up with everybody else?
9:03
And then how do we keep it really, really simple?
9:06
And it's like, and then also we have a dispersed workforce,
9:08
people working right for the place.
9:10
How do you make sure these people, you know, are learning
9:12
from each other? And I just think people before
9:15
you can get away with being pretty good, but now you need
9:18
people to be brilliant. And then also you need to learn
9:20
from each other. So hence the reason why we
9:22
create Swayders like how do I make sure that when you learn
9:25
something, I know that you've learned to you've not just
9:27
watched a video and then also after that, I don't make sure
9:30
that you're talking to your colleagues.
9:31
And you know, when you're learning, you're learning to
9:33
teach. Our chief science officer is the
9:35
head of cognitive neuroscience at Caltech University.
9:38
He's a guy called professor Dean Mobs.
9:40
And now Dean was a normal ladding catching just like me,
9:43
left school with no qualifications, you know, 19.
9:46
He's in London painting and decorating.
9:48
He couldn't sit still in the class.
9:50
He's got like ADHD and God knows what, you know what else?
9:53
And then he decided he's going to go to Tresham College and
9:55
just give you an idea. Tresham College is like the most
9:58
normal College in the world. It's, it's the town College in
10:01
Kettering. And then he came out there, did
10:03
quite well, got his GCSE, then went off to a Birmingham
10:06
University and one from there went to Cambridge, then went off
10:09
and he's, you know, from Cambridge all over the place.
10:11
He's now the head of cognitive neuroscience.
10:14
And he worked in deep mind with demos.
10:16
And when I spoke to Dean, I said, how can we make sure that
10:20
people can remember something when we teach them and keep it
10:23
really simple. And he said, well, we use the
10:25
Feynman technique. We'll make sure that when they
10:26
learn it, they teach you back and they remember it.
10:28
And so that's the, that's the key to it.
10:31
Make sure they can teach you back.
10:32
And if you make that social and you make AI make it go a little
10:36
bit faster and do the magic things that AI does it then it
10:39
makes a difference. So that's, that's our approach,
10:41
simple and optimal. Get the best content in, keep it
10:45
really simple, make people learn, teach back.
10:47
Then you've got a chance there you building blocks and your
10:49
steps. Yeah, that simple is the word.
10:51
Sorry. Go on, I said.
10:52
I don't know if that answers your question if or not, but I
10:54
mean that's that's my take. Yeah, it does.
10:57
I mean, it's this is, this is all informative stuff.
10:59
And I I think it's, it's nice to hear simplicity because that's
11:01
the word I drum into my dream day in, day out.
11:05
We can make something seem as complex and difficult to use as
11:09
as we want to make it seem like, wow, you've got to spend a lot
11:13
of money on this because it's it's really complicated, right?
11:15
The key is really simply we can solve that problem you've got
11:19
and I think that's that's the key to it.
11:20
Keep it simple. And I think you nailed it there.
11:23
So when you look back, because sounds enlightenment, right?
11:26
It's been around forever and some of it's OK, some of it's
11:29
not. Was there a pivotal moment that
11:31
made you realize that the traditional approaches we've
11:33
always used just don't work anymore?
11:35
From my. Perspective.
11:37
If you think about in my life we reverse Google's algorithm.
11:41
In the past we were number one in the world for all the major
11:43
search terms and insurance. We just get 10,000 leads coming
11:46
through every month. And I thought I was the best
11:49
thing since rice bread, nice red Ferrari, big country house,
11:52
£1.28 million mortgage, kids in private school and I trained my
11:57
people how I thought training them would be good enough.
11:59
But then Google did. In 2008, only Google do it
12:04
changed its algorithm and all of a sudden the leads that were
12:07
coming in started. And so it went from cricket, it
12:10
went from like everything's busy, 200 people busy call
12:13
centre to zero. And then everyone's coming
12:16
around going what we're going to do Dave, what you going to do
12:19
Dave? And they're looking at you going
12:22
and then your salespeople start leaving because they used to
12:25
really, really easy leads and times have got hard and all of a
12:28
sudden my wife's looking at me again.
12:30
Well, you need to sort it out because the kids got school
12:32
fees, the £1.28 million mortgage and we live in a normal county.
12:36
We live in Northamptonshire and the business is in
12:38
Wellingborough. And so I thought, Oh my God.
12:41
And, you know, and there wasn't a gene pool like a big
12:43
university like Bedford College or, you know, whatever.
12:46
We had to train the ordinary people, normal people like me
12:49
that weren't super educated how to be great.
12:52
And it was like, well, I'll say, what if we use semiotics, which
12:55
is using words and turn them into images?
12:58
And then we kept it really, really simple.
12:59
And then, you know, I worked with a guy called Doctor Robert
13:02
Cialdini. He wrote the book Influence, the
13:04
Science and Persuasion. I was one of six people in the
13:07
world that could teach influence.
13:08
We brought influence into the business and that made a massive
13:12
difference and we kept it ever so simple.
13:15
Really, really simple. But then we ended up teaching
13:18
our people everything for a longer period of time.
13:20
We took a three months gestation period to build a salesperson
13:24
that could last a lifetime. So they were optimized and it
13:27
was kept simple and then that made a difference.
13:29
Then all of a sudden the business that was making 200
13:32
grand a month all of a sudden is making underground a month.
13:34
But it's underground for me. And it was built on solid
13:37
foundations as opposed to it being built on vapor, which was
13:41
we're just putting them through the mill and putting them into
13:43
the system rather than taking one person and teaching them
13:46
about positive mental attitude, neurolinguistic programming,
13:50
each of the influence principles, the activators, the
13:52
science, making it turning into images.
13:54
So then your pathways wired. And then and then all of a
13:57
sudden, you think, what? OK, if we put this into a bit of
14:00
tech, we could make it work. And obviously that was the birth
14:02
of the business. And you know how things change.
14:04
But yeah, 2008 November. I'll never forget it.
14:07
My old grandmother. I was born in Scotland.
14:09
My old grandmother used to say you break your heart and scatter
14:13
your coppers and that's what I wanted to do.
14:15
When Google took away the rankings I was like no mummy so
14:20
that also. I think, Paul, the challenge now
14:23
is many of us were trained for a world that no longer exists,
14:26
right? So when I think back to all the
14:28
great people I've worked with in sales and they're all, you know,
14:31
leaving jobs or being axed at the minute and they're all great
14:33
getting together and they're setting up revenue magazine
14:36
because there's loads and loads of experience and knowledge.
14:38
Just because you hit 4550 doesn't mean that you are cast
14:42
to the wind sort of thing. So, you know, revenue leaders
14:44
have got a lot to do with more. We've got to do more with less
14:47
nowadays. So traditional training, it's
14:49
about pivoting, it's about agility, speed, it's based.
14:52
And one of the things I've enjoyed since leaving corporate
14:54
because I spent years watching loads of people at NetSuite and
14:57
Salesforce. They all go to San Francisco,
14:59
they get sheep dipped. They do the traditional training
15:02
in medic. They all come back and there's
15:03
six months to, you know, you have to, there's a hill you need
15:06
to die on or become successful. There's your there's your desk,
15:09
there's your sales loft, there's your data enrichment tools.
15:11
Good luck. And they've stripped away the
15:13
human piece of the building relationships.
15:16
And then I think when COVID hit, it stopped us going out field
15:19
selling. So we were with kind of forced
15:21
to spend two or three years doing their death by Teams and
15:25
Zoom calls, weren't we? And I think we've never really
15:27
got back to that because you know, when, when we were selling
15:30
successfully and doing really well, percentage close rates
15:33
went up 4050%. If we just got in the room and
15:36
built human connective tissue with the guys, whether it's a
15:38
partnership or it's a client. And so nowadays we've got all
15:42
these tools at our disposal. And I really enjoy getting on
15:45
the tools building go to market and strategy plans and hours,
15:48
not days and weeks. And I'm building automated
15:50
workflows basically using perplexity manners, Chachi PT,
15:54
notebook LM to build podcasts. And I better understand, you
15:58
know, the, the client engagements now.
16:00
So it's about also trainings change, but it's also on the
16:04
onus of being digitally curious and wanting to learn this stuff
16:07
as well. And I think that's the three
16:08
things holding AI back at the minute, which is the budgets
16:11
aren't there, the ROI metrics aren't there, and the upscaling
16:14
around some of these tools is probably still not where it
16:17
should be. Yeah, and I think there's,
16:19
there's definitely a oh, we've got AI.
16:21
Yeah, we've got AI as well. Yeah, we've got and everyone
16:23
obviously is jumping on the AI bandwagon because it's a big
16:26
topic in my experience the last few months, it's amazing how
16:30
many sales leaders I speak to that starting to get already a
16:34
bit not disbelieving, but untrusting of some of the AI
16:37
stuff that's coming through. I call it AI without the Y go
16:41
and do this because AI tells you to and it's that black box
16:44
environment. There's never any insight or
16:46
reasoning behind it. And you do it and so often you
16:49
find out actually it's not right.
16:51
They're sending me off on wild goose chases and things like
16:53
that. And then they come back and then
16:55
the next time they get the AI signal, I go, I don't trust it.
16:57
So I think, don't get me wrong, AI is the future and we've all
17:00
got to adopt it, but we've got to be careful that we don't just
17:03
blindly trust AI without having that insight.
17:07
And so anyway, AI with the Y is is where I think we should be
17:10
going. But on that AI topic, and I'm
17:12
sure we'll dig it into into it in a bit more.
17:15
Tell me about your thoughts around AI acting as a coach
17:18
rather than just being as we're talking about someone just
17:21
throwing data at sales. So AI as a coach is useful from
17:25
my perspective. You can't get a transformation
17:27
result from an informational product.
17:30
I've got this from a guy called Lanny Bash who's a he won a gold
17:33
medal at the Olympics. And what that means is if you
17:36
think of a book or an online course, you're not going to get
17:39
transformation out of that unless you've got three further
17:42
steps, steps. You need application by an
17:45
expert. So you need Paul or a Dave or
17:47
John or Lucy or whatever. You need somebody to tell you
17:50
how to apply the knowledge that you've got.
17:52
And so I can do part of the job if there's not a human there, I
17:55
do need, you have a human, but ideally can do part of it.
17:59
Confirmation you're doing it right.
18:00
A I can do a little bit of that, but not all of it.
18:03
And then also consultation, the ability to ask a question and
18:06
get an answer. You can do that quite well.
18:08
So it's just a case of how can you get some of the lifting
18:11
lifted off of the human, but then you need the why.
18:14
And you know, that confirmation, you're doing it right, that
18:17
consultation and and it will give you part of the lifting,
18:20
but not all of it. Because what people where I
18:22
think AI misses is the emotion. You know, it can give you all
18:25
the logic in the world, but you know, it can't tell you how you
18:29
can look in somebody's eyes and if they're blinking like that,
18:31
you think, well, they're not taking it in.
18:33
Whereas if they're staring at you and you know they're staring
18:35
at you, then you go, this person's taking it in.
18:38
And it's hard for an AI to teach that, but it can give you some
18:43
of the lifting and as it's doing in places, but not all of it, it
18:47
can't do all of it. Yeah.
18:48
And I think you mentioned that because we went to, do you
18:50
remember we went to the Learning Technologies event in London
18:53
earlier this year and it was just full of wonderful learning
18:55
management systems from Synthesia to everything else in
18:58
between. And it's feature rich and it's
19:01
all AI infused etcetera. But no one could tell us
19:04
understand what the price was. No one could actually do a demo
19:07
and there was one guy, 30 people on the stand.
19:09
No one could could explain it. No one could sell it.
19:12
And it's like, there was just, we came away, didn't we,
19:14
thinking, well, even the people selling this stuff need to learn
19:17
how to sell. That was the biggest thing.
19:21
Right, young things all right, well, how much does it cost and
19:23
can I see it working? No, because there's one guy that
19:25
can only demo it and he knows everything.
19:27
And what the what you all 25 are you doing then?
19:29
Standing around giving out free sock?
19:32
But nobody was trying. No, no one was trained on how to
19:36
sell the bloody thing. They were talking about all the
19:37
features you got like. It's amazing how this day and
19:41
age and we all should, no one should be doing it now, but he's
19:44
speaking here. So many sales people and they're
19:47
still just selling features and it's just amazing that this day
19:50
and age that that's still the case.
19:52
You know, I recently had or I've just done around hiring and the
19:57
number of people I interviewed from the big companies, Let's
20:00
just say that the big enterprise companies we all love and know.
20:04
Put them in a lane, give them a script, they'll go and do it and
20:07
they sell because they're backed by this huge logo.
20:09
Put them in an environment like ours where you have to explain
20:12
what we do and many companies don't know who you are and
20:15
therefore you've got to get the old traditional sales and
20:18
they're just not up to it. So I think it's really
20:20
interesting. So I suppose that brings me on
20:22
to the next bit of the, the topic really, is it the elephant
20:25
in the room? I don't know.
20:26
But most sales training out there done by these big
20:29
organisations is, is seems to me like a tick box exercise.
20:33
To your point, Dave. Oh yeah, they watch the video.
20:35
They must be trained on it. So, so maybe Barry, this one's
20:38
for you. Can you explain how the teach
20:40
back methodology fundamentally changes retention and why
20:44
getting reps to teach content back, you know, transforms
20:47
everything they're able to do? Yeah, well, I mean, I think
20:50
people forget 70% of learning out of the gate within 24 hours,
20:54
you know, and also I think people retain 90% when they
20:57
teach it to others. So, you know, it's like when we
20:59
go down the pub after work or with friends on the weekend,
21:02
it's all about storytelling and it's about basically, oh, you
21:05
should have heard what I So it is that sort of repartee going
21:09
on as well. So it's a form of social
21:11
currency. It's a chance to validate what's
21:13
going in. I think when you put people in
21:15
rote learning in a classroom based situation, and I think a
21:18
lot of it's compliance driven. I remember, you know, we had to
21:21
do security training, we had to learn on a platform, we had to
21:24
learn this. And it's because you have to get
21:25
to 100 and it takes a box for someone, but you're not really
21:29
engaged with the content. You're not really, you know, so
21:32
this ability using AI as a sort of coach to real time and and
21:35
get it into your head as an always on sales coach that
21:37
reinforces the teach back. But teach back transforms
21:41
retention because it kind of flips the model Instead of just
21:44
listening, sales reps have got to then, you know, reuse it, you
21:47
know, teach back the value props, handle objections, demo,
21:50
feature rich stuff, you know, building empathy with the buyer
21:54
because the buyers moved upstream nowadays as well.
21:56
So where are they on the buyer's journey?
21:58
Are they later in the cycle? Are they early in the cycle?
22:01
So, you know, it's all about building confidence.
22:03
It's about building skill and then giving that tailored
22:06
feedback so that you can almost become a coach to others.
22:09
Because, you know, one of the things I really enjoyed when I
22:12
was doing enterprise selling was seeing new people come into the
22:15
organization. And through my knowledge and
22:17
experience of winning and losing enterprise deals, you can go
22:21
into the weeds with them and really teach them.
22:23
This is the key steps in the process to bringing that buyer
22:27
along with you. You know, where there's white
22:29
spaces in your dealer and your knowledge, go and learn it.
22:32
Don't make the same mistake time after time.
22:34
You know, if you are very poor at doing discovery and your
22:37
legacy discovery versus adaptive discovery, this is self
22:41
improvement. And these are all skills with
22:42
teachback that as you move from organization to organization,
22:46
you bring that that discipline and skill with you.
22:48
It's not ready to that organization you're working with
22:51
at that moment in time. So and the really good sales
22:54
people I've seen, they lean in, they don't talk about pricing
22:57
early. They do a lot of discovery.
22:59
I mean we had a very large betting company as one of our
23:02
clients and we would spend 55 minutes chatting to their team
23:04
about football and that's and then we'd spend 5 minutes at the
23:07
end. But that's the trust building
23:09
factor in there as well. We knew the platform, we've done
23:12
all the training. We knew where they were in their
23:14
journey. But I think that's the key thing
23:16
around teachback as well as not just understanding the features
23:20
and platform features, etcetera, but it's also understanding the
23:24
human connective tissue as well. And I think when you augment
23:27
that sort of teach back format so that the retention stays in
23:30
there, plus you're building empathy and you're putting
23:33
yourself in the shoes of the by, that's a very powerful
23:35
combination. Yeah, it's really interesting.
23:37
And, and I, we, I, I was involved in an experience
23:41
recently where going back to Dave's earlier point, watch this
23:44
video and then record yourself doing it.
23:48
But then this, it was marked by AI.
23:50
So if you read word for word what was on the script, you've
23:53
got a 10. If you, you just put the human
23:56
side of it, you've got a 5, you know, and that sort of thing
23:58
just that's where AI can get dangerous.
24:01
So I mean, Dave, question for you.
24:03
You've seen AI implementations that probably drown teams in
24:06
noise and against those that maybe actually drive vehicle
24:10
change. What?
24:10
What separates AI that coaches from AI that confuses?
24:16
I don't know. I wish I could say I know I
24:19
don't know how to answer that in the right way.
24:21
I guess it's GIGO garbage in, garbage out, right.
24:25
The last question you asked Barry about teach back.
24:29
Maybe this answers answers it in in some kind of way.
24:32
And there's a guy called William Bennett who I met the other week
24:36
in London, whose lawyer is one of the top lawyers in Jersey.
24:39
And his son there is Arthur. And they've been doing this
24:41
little AI training company. So I met William and Arthur,
24:44
both like 6 foot 36 foot 4. They're like landed for the
24:47
Giants and I'm 5 foot six. I'm stood next to these guys.
24:50
I met a guy from Jersey and like, there's a trillion of
24:53
wealth in Jersey. So we talked about doing some
24:54
training there. And I was asking to describe his
24:57
business. And I thought sometimes you want
24:59
to do things because, you know, they don't make sense, but they
25:02
feel right. And so I said, you know, I'm
25:03
going to train you, boy. He's 19 years old.
25:05
You didn't go to any other business.
25:06
Partner ripped him off. So I started training Williams
25:10
and Arthur and Williams my age. I said, I'll teach him about the
25:12
DNA of persuasion influence. I'll teach him about Cardini
25:15
stuff, pitching frame and negotiating.
25:17
And then three weeks later he says, yeah, I've done your
25:19
course. No, you haven't.
25:21
No, you haven't. You haven't done a single teach.
25:23
But. Well, I don't see the point.
25:24
I know it. And so I started questioning,
25:25
let's get your dad. I'm all doing Zoom.
25:27
I said I'd teach you. I'll charge 10 grand to put
25:29
people through this. So I've put I've just put him
25:31
through the course He's gone through.
25:33
He's done it in two weeks. And he's he's an absolute
25:35
genius. The kids really, really bright.
25:37
And he's and he done a call last week and he went, Oh my God.
25:41
I was using Socrates on the call and I could see myself doing it.
25:45
He said I was giving them three options, the good, the better
25:47
and best option. Now had he watched the videos,
25:50
which he did, he wasn't got any of it.
25:52
But when he put teach back into what he was doing, it changed
25:55
him. And when he couldn't talk to me,
25:56
I said you use the I said, Oh yeah, I asked the questions he
25:59
said, but obviously I wanted to talk to you.
26:00
So it just lifted some of the burden off of me.
26:03
So for me it was like I don't keep like optimal and simple.
26:07
So now that kid, right, he closed 6 sales.
26:10
He told me yesterday and that made me feel great.
26:11
And he was doing one or two or none.
26:13
But he's putting this thing on. We'll teach you AI to anybody
26:17
three on Facebook 90 people come in saying they're going to book
26:20
for this scene. 30 show up and he sold 6 our best ever.
26:24
The only reason he could do that was because a, he learned about
26:29
what we call the core fundamentals.
26:31
He learned about Socrates, If we're still talking about
26:33
somebody 2 1/2 thousand years after they died, that they knew
26:36
something. So you want to know that they
26:37
know exactly. And so he knows exactly.
26:40
He talks about the science of influence.
26:42
He knows about the influence principles.
26:43
He knows them exactly. And now what that's done is it's
26:46
changed his self-image, right? So that that's what it's done.
26:49
So so we've got a good implementation of it.
26:52
One of my friends said to me once smart is smart, but smart
26:55
ass is smart. I think we should go keep it
26:57
really small and don't over commit.
26:59
How do we keep AI really, really small and then don't over commit
27:03
to it and then get utility from it and test and learn?
27:06
That's my answer anyway. But I'm I'm probably not the
27:09
best person to answer loads on AI because focused on training
27:12
and implementing and I won't bullshit you're you're all the
27:15
people listening. Well, it's a coach, not a cop as
27:17
we say, right? Does that answer it?
27:19
Does that answer what? Yeah.
27:20
Absolutely no, it's, it's everything you're answering here
27:23
is, is relevant. And this is the whole point of
27:25
these sessions, right? It's not me telling you, give me
27:27
this answer. It's opening up for the
27:29
discussion. So I think it's working really
27:31
well. So everyone talks about
27:33
strategies and go to market. We're going to do this and we're
27:36
going to do that. And, and often when boardrooms
27:38
come up with that, it sounds brilliant and then that's
27:40
fantastic. But when it actually gets out to
27:42
the field, it all crumbles and falls apart.
27:44
What do you say are the biggest execution gaps and do you think
27:48
teach back an AI is that is the solution to bridging them?
27:52
From my perspective, if I think that, yeah, if I think, if I
27:55
think back to my days, if you work in manufacturing, right,
27:59
and you don't get it perfect, you produce waste.
28:02
So working in the shoe factory, they used to have this track and
28:05
it was consistent in the Army. When I was in the Army, if you
28:09
didn't follow the rules and the orders that everyone was going
28:12
to do, and obviously people got killed.
28:13
So how good do you want to make sure that you are?
28:19
If you're an operational person, you want your operation to be
28:21
seamless. If you're flying a plane, you
28:22
want them to take off and land perfectly or at least be really,
28:26
really good at it and you want to see somebody doing it.
28:28
So to me it's about making sure you train your people properly
28:31
and then you've got some kind of an audit process and say teach
28:34
backs no more than an audit, but it's changing self-image.
28:38
That's my answer. Yeah, it's a superpower, and
28:40
it's continuous, continuous learning.
28:42
So it forces retention, builds confidence, and that drives
28:45
performance and pipeline completion and less churn.
28:48
And the other thing is culture as well.
28:50
You know, if you've got a team where everyone's in that sort of
28:52
same mindset, it's the great feeling.
28:54
It's like being on a submarine and all the little engines are
28:56
rolling together and everyone's aligned and everyone's being
28:59
successful and there's a culture of helping each other and you
29:02
know, not everyone has all the answers.
29:04
So if there's a colleague in your team as well, you know,
29:06
work with them. Always follow the top people.
29:08
That's what I always did in my career.
29:09
I found the best guy in the room.
29:10
I went and learned from him. I was like, who's the top guy
29:13
here? Why is he so successful?
29:14
What behavior traits does he have?
29:16
You know, they stay back longer, they practice longer, they ask
29:20
better questions. What was leaning into the
29:22
client? You know, they ask questions
29:24
like not open-ended, but they would say, what happens if we
29:26
don't do this? One of the metrics around this
29:28
stuff, you know, and you get into that, that questioning
29:30
funnel and in a way you bring your buyer with you because
29:33
you're making them a here you're answering their problems and
29:35
you're leaning in and demonstrating, you know, mental
29:38
intelligence around curiosity. We've got your back.
29:42
Failure is not an option. So you know, teach back gives
29:44
you that confidence and I've seen it in practice where, you
29:47
know, classically we've got a team one of my clients got a
29:50
team of six guys. They're really struggling.
29:52
You come in, you start giving them these tools and disciplines
29:55
and they start to kick in. You know they get more
29:57
comfortable if you see a visible uplifting closed one pipe.
30:01
You see a visible confidence and swagger to them as well.
30:04
Everything improves their data hygiene, how they look at a
30:08
deal. You know, they get straight into
30:10
it. And it's quite mesmerizing when
30:11
you see these things in practice being translated from the
30:15
boardroom into action in the field.
30:16
So. One more thing.
30:19
So my first big client that I were was the lady called, she
30:22
ran the British Standards Institute, a lady called Maureen
30:25
Sumner Smith. So what do you do?
30:27
And I just sold my business. So well, I've just started
30:30
working with Robert Cialdini teaching influence.
30:33
What would you want to do? I said, well, I still want to
30:34
start training business. And she said you should come and
30:37
work with me. So I worked with them for 18
30:38
months, 400 of their salespeople, and we put their
30:41
sales up by 40% by making sure each person taught back what
30:45
they learned. And I've flown all over the
30:46
globe, but still got the pictures and the mind maps and
30:48
all the rest of it. So when you see, and I'm
30:51
surprised, I'm like these people have been trained, but I've ran
30:54
a smaller business. We've got a couple of 100
30:56
people, they've got thousands. I'm like, well, if they've been
30:58
trained, where's the evidence they've been trained?
31:00
They didn't train. They don't know about
31:03
negotiation, the predictive responses, they don't know about
31:06
the principles of influence. How can they have been trained?
31:09
So what I considered the fundamentals were just missing.
31:12
And some like, well, we'll go and train them and then they'll
31:14
teach back and then we'll go and deploy them.
31:16
And then all of a sudden Maureen said something to look lovely to
31:19
me. She said I'd have been screwed
31:21
if I'd met you. I was like I.
31:24
Mean people's careers depending because.
31:26
They make the difference. And that was lovely, you know,
31:29
and gave me the best testimony was ever.
31:31
So it works on a small scale, It works on a big scale.
31:35
And ultimately, when people actually do the thing you want
31:38
them to do, when you see them doing it, Paul, do you trust
31:41
them more or less? Obviously it's an interesting
31:43
thing because actually my best salespeople now are helping me
31:48
train the other salespeople. And.
31:50
And it's whether you call it teach back, whatever, it's their
31:53
ability to know that what they're saying is right and how
31:56
they say it right. And we use Gong quite a lot.
31:58
I don't know if Gong's the technology you utilize at all to
32:00
listen back. And then we sit down and coach
32:03
using that. Now I do it a lot.
32:04
But now my sales team besides, hey, jump right?
32:07
And called me for 5 minutes. I just want to tell you how I
32:09
would have framed this. And it's it's a lovely thing to
32:11
say. That's what I was saying earlier
32:13
when when everyone's aligned in that culture of improvement and
32:16
getting because we all know what the stake is.
32:18
These technologies and teachback methodologies just give you that
32:21
edge, that sizzle as well. So it really is a superpower.
32:25
I mean, I've been at events with Dave, people run up to him like
32:28
he's the Messiah going, Oh my God, thank you, you saved my
32:31
life. I was there.
32:32
Do you remember that guy we were with at the?
32:34
So it's really because people remember that people always
32:37
remember their best teachers and they remember them with
32:39
fondness, don't they? From school days perhaps.
32:42
So when people come into your life and they give you this
32:44
power and this this information and empower you, it's quite a
32:48
bit a joy to behold, especially when they run up to you in the
32:50
street going, Oh my God, I would have been sunk without you.
32:53
A great feeling, and the cultural side is really
32:55
important, and I think that often gets overlooked,
32:57
especially when companies are growing fast.
32:59
What's your thoughts on how you preserve that human authenticity
33:03
that builds that trust while you're still trying to leverage
33:06
those AI and structured methodologies?
33:08
Yeah. I mean, look, culture is your
33:09
real competitive edge. You know, I've seen it done well
33:12
and I've seen it done badly. I mean, companies that are just
33:14
building tech stacks, they lose sight of the human side.
33:17
And then this is probably why sales teams churn a lot as well.
33:20
When you've got a churning sales team, it sort of impacts the
33:22
rest of it. So I think empathy, curiosity,
33:25
trust, having a great line manager, having, you know, being
33:29
listened to, having regular cadences, you know, where could
33:32
I improve coaching, things like that.
33:34
It's not just about bringing up your sales force dashboard and
33:36
seeing where you are in the pipe deal, 40 percent, 60%, you know,
33:40
where are the white spaces in my deal?
33:42
How could I improve for the next time?
33:43
So for me, you know, scaling without soul crushing means
33:47
keeping authenticity, I suppose, at the core and using AI as a
33:51
coach, not just to, you know, not a cop.
33:54
So you shouldn't use it with a big stick.
33:55
So I think, you know, giving people back time to be authentic
33:58
to, to really put themselves into it.
34:00
And as I said, there's a lot of knowledge out there.
34:02
I mean, I've seen brilliant salespeople move on who become
34:05
and not all great salespeople make great sales managers
34:08
either. So you know, these tools and and
34:10
embracing these tools, the collective wisdom of everybody
34:13
in sales as well in that team, you know, brills a great
34:16
culture. And then all it was we say all
34:18
boats rise together, right? From my perspective, read the
34:21
culture side of things, you're doing it.
34:23
So if you're getting people coaching each other, the only
34:26
thing I think put in place is put the language in place.
34:29
So if somebody's talking about Socrates, or they're talking
34:32
about framing, or they're talking about negotiation or
34:34
they're talking about influence, everybody's talking the same
34:37
language. BSI guys, when we did it with
34:40
them, got lovely testimony on it and they used to do what you're
34:43
doing like they do deal clinics every day, listen to yesterday's
34:46
calls, then they'd go and then they'd coach on.
34:48
Well, you could have used the best Socratic question.
34:50
You could have reframed that better.
34:52
You could have future paced here.
34:54
But everybody needs to understand the basic
34:56
nomenclature and the skills and the tactics, what having the
34:59
tools in your toolbox. But what you're doing is
35:02
culture. That's where the culture gets
35:03
built because you're connecting the disconnected, you're
35:05
connecting people. And that's lovely then.
35:08
So I'm coming to work, not just to do a job, but to help the
35:10
people. And that's how we grow together,
35:12
you know, build those experiences.
35:13
Lovely. Yeah, absolutely.
35:15
And we talk about tech and I know I speak to a lot of sales
35:18
leaders and say, right, we need to solve this problem by more
35:21
tech, but they're still saying the execution is just as poor.
35:24
So where do you think they should start as they look to
35:27
implement maybe AI as a true coaching tool rather than just
35:31
another reporting layer, dashboard, whatever?
35:34
It comes down to two things. There's two fundamental pieces
35:38
that you need to put in place. The first one is teaching people
35:41
about the right mental attitude, right.
35:43
So there's a definition to a positive mental attitude, a
35:46
negative mental attitude inertia.
35:48
So we need to people to have the right mental attitude in any
35:50
given set of circumstances, incorporating the plus rates of
35:53
life. Having that can do wheel try
35:55
attitude teaching that and then also teaching people the right
35:58
work ethic, how to go the extra mile.
36:00
And then if we get the right mindset and the right work
36:02
ethic, then whatever we going to take on board, we'll take it on
36:06
board with the right, the right frame of mind, faster piece of
36:09
training we can put in place. And then whatever the tech is,
36:12
it's going to be great at something.
36:14
Our job is to work hard enough to find out the what and then
36:17
also have the right mindset and not say this is rubbish.
36:19
You know, we're in very, very, very changing times.
36:23
The things are different this week to last week, but our
36:26
ability to have the right mindset, to refrain negative
36:29
situations, to be positive and to actually work really hard.
36:32
They're three key fundamentals from my point of view.
36:34
Yeah, same. What I would concur with most of
36:36
that as well. You know, align your go to
36:38
market around the buyer, not an org chart.
36:40
You know, don't be drowning because I mean it's
36:41
overwhelming, you know, when I see how much tech is in these
36:44
organizations, how many logins do you need, right.
36:47
You've got data enrichment tools, you've got ABM testing
36:51
tools, you've got Salesforce. If it's non Salesforce, it
36:54
doesn't exist or HubSpot and it creates a paucity of time for
36:58
reps to get creative because they're just drowning in all
37:01
this tech and reporting and being measured.
37:03
And I think that's the bit that strips away the fun and the job
37:06
nowadays compared to 10 years ago for me.
37:08
Used to get out on the road with your colleagues, have a beer, go
37:11
to nice locations, sit with a client, build affinity, have a
37:15
laugh, come back, get the deal. Now it's like Robotron almost
37:19
for a lot of the new generation coming through that's like, and
37:22
if you're not successful in three months with all this tech,
37:25
we're going to fire. Do you?
37:26
I mean, that's how does that inspire or encourage anyone to
37:29
kind of be the best version of themselves, right?
37:31
And also when you're, when you even things like hiring people,
37:34
right, how many times I hear it that you interview like this to
37:39
5-6 different people and then get the job and then three
37:42
months later you actually meet in person again, This isn't a
37:46
salesperson, John. I mean, it's so important that,
37:48
that human side of it. And luckily, I think, you know,
37:52
the last year or so, I've seen a lot more events and trade shows
37:56
and we've had a lot more face to face meetings with customers.
37:59
So it's going back and it'll never get back to the fun days
38:02
it was, but it's definitely getting better.
38:04
Well, my old boss would say look beyond the CV.
38:06
You know, if you go to welcome to the Jungle or any of these
38:09
job boards nowadays, first of all, good luck getting past the
38:12
applicant tracking system #2 it's like, you know, you don't
38:15
get a chance to shine your person out.
38:17
And the interview process is like elongated.
38:19
They have to do psychometric tests and surveys instead.
38:22
Meet 10 people. It's crazy.
38:25
One thing where our tech's amazing, when you hire somebody,
38:27
it's going to be a gamble, right?
38:29
But if you ask them to teach me back, Socrates, framing,
38:32
negotiation, positive mental attitude, the influence
38:35
principles, while they're teaching you back and you're
38:37
doing no work because you've got it built into your learning
38:40
management system. You're assessing to say, is this
38:43
person any good or are they useless?
38:45
And you can tell by seeing what they do, not what they say, but
38:49
what they actually do while they're in their probationary
38:51
period and when they're in their learning.
38:52
Are you a winner or a loser? Any good?
38:55
No good, Lazy, not lazy. And that's a game changer.
38:58
So the onboarding of new people is that's our superpower because
39:02
you get to see why they're going through that gestation period at
39:05
first four weeks, whatever it is, if they can teach back and
39:09
do it really, really well where your talent is or, or where the
39:12
garbage is and you should never have taken them on board.
39:15
And that's amazing. The other thing is today
39:17
Persuader, you know, we're talking separate marketing, but
39:20
some of the projects Swader are involved with are literally life
39:23
and death. You know, people going back to
39:25
work or people are building sites in the Middle East blowing
39:28
themselves up. And if you can't teach in the
39:31
content around health and safety, for example, when
39:33
they're blowing their arms and legs off or stick to dynamite
39:36
because the language, they all put them in a tent in the middle
39:38
of somewhere. But you know, powerful apps now
39:41
that are coming out, they're multilingual, so it can be
39:43
personalized for the for the person doing the training and
39:46
the teach back. And then they need to know that
39:48
people it's gone in because, you know, there's been so many
39:52
accidents happening in the workplace as well.
39:55
So we're talking sales and marketing, but these
39:57
technologies are very powerful outside of just sales and
40:00
marketing. Yeah, I'm a big believer in all
40:02
this stuff. For the listeners this have you
40:04
got a specific example where the teach back side of things
40:09
transformed A struggling sales team performance and and what
40:12
the concrete results were that were delivered?
40:15
I don't know if you're able to mention company names, but an
40:17
example if not. Yeah, we've got ton absolute
40:20
loads. I mean, if you go to Trustpilot,
40:22
put swader in, you'll see loads. One that springs to mind,
40:26
there's a real academic ones, small business in the States are
40:31
called Synolytic. And there's a guy there that
40:34
works for NASA called Dev Sen, one of the brightest people in
40:36
the world, like 2 PhDs and like, and you know, to him and his
40:41
business partner, I was introduced to those guys and
40:44
they were saying we've created this really cool piece of
40:46
technology whereby in the film industry, if you put Brad Pitt
40:50
into the film or you're going to pull us and Tom Cruise, who's
40:53
going to be the best actor? And then they've got workflow
40:56
and they're saying we can't sell it.
40:57
We're not selling what we should be selling.
40:59
And my thing is, OK, do your people have the competencies?
41:02
Do you have the competencies? Do you know about Socrates?
41:04
No. OK.
41:05
Do you know about reframing, preframing, deframing?
41:08
No. OK what?
41:09
What about future pacing? Good about how can you talk to
41:13
people if you don't have the basic competences?
41:15
So next thing you know, they do, they go and then the business
41:18
goes bang. And you thought about what are
41:19
the things that you could use this for?
41:21
How good are you communicating with people?
41:24
And so there's basic building blocks that are that are just
41:27
missing. And then obviously we've got
41:28
tons more case studies, but if you don't teach people in the
41:31
first instance the basic fundamentals, you haven't got a
41:35
prayer. It just cannot work.
41:38
Just look at Trust Pilot and you'll see tons, you know, tons
41:41
and tons and tons. Or go to Sweda and you'll see
41:44
case studies from BSI, from DMV, from from from lots of places.
41:47
But fundamentally my passion is sales, as you probably can
41:51
gather. I love that because it changed
41:52
my life. But obviously, you know, we use
41:54
sports, fitness, sports, science, whatever.
41:57
But it's all about making sure somebody can demonstrate
41:59
competence. Show me.
42:01
You can do it if you show me and you show everybody else now I
42:04
believe you. If you can't forget it and then
42:06
put it on video so that if you leave, I can show what Marco
42:09
used to look like and what he did when he was in.
42:11
He was our best salesperson because then we've got that in
42:14
place. Yeah, I've been applying the
42:15
principles of teach back for a couple of my scale UPS.
42:18
The the most important thing is well cost money to hire people
42:23
and when you get the higher wrong, it costs, you know, time
42:25
and money. So by applying teach back to
42:28
make them successful as they come in the door, learning these
42:31
disciplines from day one, we've seen the churn numbers drop by
42:34
50% as well from coming in and then the sales teams now the
42:38
deal increased by 35% using this as well.
42:41
So that was a big jump there. So again, the difference isn't
42:44
more training material, it's making sure what you do teach
42:47
goes in, builds the culture, makes them feel part of the
42:50
fixtures and feelings inside the organization and turning that
42:52
knowledge into capability. And that creates more of a safe
42:55
space for these reps to flourish and then kick on in their career
42:59
rather than have you done the training, take about you're not
43:02
hitting your numbers, we're going to fire you and you move
43:04
on. And then you know, so we need to
43:06
stop that. There's been too much of that
43:08
when I've had some guys in my network that have had three
43:10
different jobs in a year. I mean, you can't just keep
43:13
hopping from job to job. So This is why I teach back when
43:16
you get it, they will take those skills into their next career
43:18
path as well. Yeah, I was where I read it now,
43:22
but there's a quote saying that they don't want to spend all
43:25
this money training someone, get them to the fantastic position
43:29
and then they'll leave. But surely that's better than
43:31
not training anyone. And they stayed with you for six
43:33
years and failed for six years. So it's interesting there.
43:36
So, so sales reps are are sceptical of of new tools and
43:40
methodologies. We all know that.
43:42
So from your experience, how do you get buy in for AI driven
43:46
coaching, peer-to-peer teach back approaches without creating
43:50
or overcoming that resistance? If something's really, really
43:54
good and it saves you time, then you get engagement and if it's
43:57
just bang average and rubbish, they won't get engagement.
44:00
So the proof of the puddings in the eating and as he's really
44:03
good and obviously he gets engagement, but you know, you
44:06
need to make it brilliant. Either that or forget it.
44:08
So that that's how that's how we get the engagement.
44:10
And obviously teaching back is nothing more than learning from
44:14
your next door neighbor. It's about being nosy.
44:16
So people are nosy. They want to see what anybody
44:19
else is doing. And if you can learn from the
44:20
best people in your organization, obviously that
44:22
makes a difference. Yeah.
44:23
And I'd say like a lot of enterprises, they're very
44:25
prescriptive, the way they kind of force technology on the reps
44:28
now as well. If you look at Salesforce now,
44:30
they're using agent force and they want their own reps to use
44:33
these technologies to do better diary management, calendar
44:36
setting, outreach, discovery as well.
44:39
But it still comes back down to the same basic principles.
44:41
You know, you've got to know your ICP anyway, whether that's
44:45
with or without AI tools and teach back what are the pain
44:47
points? What's the message if it's not
44:49
working? Pivot is the distribution
44:51
channel, right? I think the onus is also on the
44:53
Rep right to be curious. So you can lead a horse to
44:56
water. You can't make it drink.
44:57
You know, I've seen so many sales teams just baptize and
45:00
value value based selling frameworks and Med pick and
45:03
everything else. So once that's ingrained in you
45:06
anyway, that sort of, you know, repetition, repetition, the
45:09
teach back option is to kind of accelerate you from just being
45:12
an average seller to being an exceptional seller.
45:15
And I think that's where where people play that back in their
45:18
heads. They know the white spaces in
45:20
their deal. They know the questions to ask.
45:22
They know how to put themselves in the shoes of the buyer and
45:24
kind of sell solutions, not features and widgets, etcetera.
45:27
And the teach back thing is just another tool in their Armory for
45:31
us. So whether you're using
45:32
platform, whether it's mandatory or not, as a lot of tech
45:35
companies are, is very much, you know, for me, the onus is on the
45:39
Rep to accelerate. And if they're doing it
45:41
properly, they'll see that in their monthly and quarterly
45:43
Commission checks. Yeah.
45:45
And we see that a lot. So we, we've got some, most of
45:47
our team are doing really well, but some are doing exceptionally
45:49
well and they're the ones that are coaching and teaching the
45:52
rest of them. You know what I'm doing that
45:54
works and hearing from your peers, I think is is definitely
45:58
better than a manager saying you must do it in this way,
46:00
especially if they've been successful.
46:02
So that makes sense. So we touched on AI earlier in
46:05
the session, but as we look ahead, how do you think the
46:07
combination of AI coaching teach back methodologies as they're
46:12
evolving? What does sales leaders need to
46:14
do to prepare for? It from my perspective, if you
46:18
look at most onboarding with regards to sales training,
46:21
roughly what happens is 1/3 of people, 30-5 people or fall out,
46:25
35% of people or fall out of training if you bring in 135
46:29
will be gone by the first year. The big issue with regards to
46:33
any kind of training is the flash to bang time.
46:36
So you bring some in day one, it takes you 6 months to know if
46:39
they're any good and that's a nightmare because you've brought
46:42
them in, you've put them through your UE learning, which is click
46:45
next and do the quiz. They might do it or give it to
46:47
their teenage kid and get them to do it for a tenner.
46:49
You might as we might as well have asked them to wash the car
46:51
and walk the dog in real time. So good at this.
46:53
And then they sit in a boot camp for three weeks and don't do
46:56
anything. You know, that's that that's an
46:58
issue, whether it's people doing it, AI doing or whatever's doing
47:01
it. When it's six months, what we do
47:02
differently is we put people in and we're saying day one, your
47:06
journey on the spot when straight you've learned this
47:08
piece of material, teach it back and then I'll verify it.
47:12
And then when you're looking at them, everybody else in the
47:13
company is looking at them and saying they'd fit our culture.
47:16
They're a really good fit or they're lazy and they're not a
47:18
good fit. So we know in three weeks if
47:21
somebody's going to be good, whether that's AI doing it or
47:23
whether that's a person doing it, It's about flipping the
47:26
script and saying, show me, demonstrate and I'll verify.
47:30
And if you know in three weeks it then then you're in.
47:32
And obviously technology is just going to make it so that people
47:35
aren't so cognitively biased. But that's the real onboarding
47:39
system that, you know, that 35% gap that you know, just needs to
47:43
be done. And in technical based sales,
47:45
like if you're selling a SAS product is more than 35%, you
47:48
know, it's up to 60% in some industries.
47:51
But what we want to do is reduce the flash to bang time, the
47:53
flash to bang times in the Army, when you know what, when I used
47:56
to be a soldier, you'd pull a trigger and then when it
47:58
flashed, you'd see the bang. And then you go, it's 2 seconds.
48:01
That means they're a mile away and we know where they are.
48:03
So that's how we see it. Yeah, and I think the future is
48:06
also today's point, you know, it's capability over completion.
48:09
Sales leaders are going to ask, has my team finished the
48:11
training? So it ticks a box and some
48:13
dashboard. It's more like, you know, can my
48:16
team demonstrate capability? And that's borne out through
48:18
process, best practice results, application, you know, really
48:22
leaning in and being, you know, professional at what they do.
48:25
So I guess AI is going to accelerate personal localized
48:28
learning at scale and whatever language that is nowadays, I
48:31
mean, you've got so many different cultures and languages
48:33
and people from different territories and you know, it's
48:36
not an English monosyllabic, one-size-fits-all of another
48:39
kind of approach to this is that you've got people from different
48:42
nationalities, cultures, backgrounds and your team
48:45
selling to clients also who have different approaches and they
48:48
could be from different parts of the world, etcetera.
48:50
So teach back essentially today's point ensures capability
48:53
is visible and that's the keyword A verifiable and then
48:57
transferable across the organization.
48:59
And if it's working, then typically good leaders, good
49:01
managers and the and the C-Suite will see that's working and ask
49:05
everyone to double down on what's being affected.
49:07
Yeah, it makes sense. And I'm assuming you know, the
49:10
younger generation, as I call them, they all work in different
49:13
ways. Right now.
49:13
They want immediacy. They've got their little apps or
49:16
they're doing stuff on TikTok or whatever.
49:18
So actually bringing that in as part of the training, I'm
49:21
assuming it's pretty, pretty vital to it.
49:22
Yeah, absolutely. Just engaging in a way that
49:25
people communicate today, that's what makes the difference.
49:27
Like I do a lot of my selling on WhatsApp.
49:29
Is that all right? I mean, I don't know, in the old
49:31
days had to send an e-mail out, you had to track it in CRO.
49:34
But as they opened the e-mail, many are in the sequence.
49:37
I mean, people are kind of, you've got a good relationship
49:39
with your prospect, you kind of move them off that Channel and
49:43
you kind of move them into a more conversational approach as
49:46
well. And that's really where people,
49:47
because it's also a speed thing, get a quick reply on WhatsApp
49:50
nowadays versus waiting seven days for a reply on an e-mail.
49:53
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So I think we're only scratching
49:57
the surface on this, so I'm sure there's lots more we can come
49:59
back on and maybe we'll do a follow up.
50:01
But for now, you both sound like people who probably consume lots
50:05
of content. So are there any books, blogs,
50:07
newsletters, maybe podcasts you'd recommend to our
50:10
listeners? Such that well there is a lot
50:12
the problem is finding time to read them as well.
50:14
So what I tend to do is grab a load of newsletters and podcasts
50:17
and I kind of also take reports and I'll run I'll even create
50:20
notebook LM and I'll basically create my own custom podcast and
50:24
listen to it out and gym out for a walk.
50:26
So I kind of teach back my SO. So I take all this information
50:29
because I haven't got time to read all these reports and
50:31
newsletters and stuff that's hitting my inbox and basically
50:35
give it a nice prompt. So this week I've really got to
50:37
focus in on learning that or learning this product or
50:40
learning this go to market strategy as well.
50:42
So I'm more of an aggregator of information as well where I kind
50:45
of use it selfishly for my own means because I've got stuff to
50:48
do this week and targets to hit myself.
50:50
So now I can I read books from Reid Hoffman thought leaders out
50:54
there. I've been tracking the guys that
50:55
implement AI pretty closely as well.
50:57
They're the whole strap line is grow your workforce, not your
51:00
payroll. So I'm really curious personally
51:02
about automation and where it's all heading, etcetera.
51:05
And we've got all these automation tools out there as
51:08
well. So it's overwhelming the volume
51:10
of information I think as well. And even finding time, I'm one
51:14
of those guys. Even sitting down and reading a
51:15
book feels like a luxury. Mine's easy.
51:18
In the book I recommend everybody reads is Pre Suasion
51:22
by Doctor Robert Cialdini. Also used to work with Bob.
51:25
The thing about that is it's really good in terms of
51:27
targeting the mindset. Everybody knows that when you're
51:30
a kid, you have to get your mom or your dad in the right mood
51:33
before you ask them. So pre suasion is about
51:35
targeting mindsets, identifying triggers for those mindsets,
51:39
moving the triggers and then extending them.
51:41
And that's really, really powerful.
51:43
And I think that, you know, if everybody understands pre
51:46
suasion and influence comes with it, then I mean, it's it's
51:49
powerful. So, you know, my favorite book
51:50
to recommend to anybody. Read and understand and
51:53
implement persuasion. You get people in the right mood
51:55
and guess what? Then they'll want to play.
51:57
And we're emotional creatures having a human experience and we
52:00
shouldn't forget that. What about yourself?
52:02
What? Do you like, I was going to ask
52:04
you, what's your preference there as well, Paul?
52:06
It's funny. I'll touch on that in a second,
52:08
but I was just also going to say that I think what you were just
52:11
saying there, David, is very relevant in the world of AI
52:14
where we're, we're thinking AI is going to replace everything.
52:17
That personal touch and that that humanity is, is going to be
52:20
so important to continue that on and maybe we'll stand out that
52:24
the people from anyone who's just hiding behind AI.
52:27
I've got so, so many. And like, like you were saying,
52:30
Barry, it's there's too much really.
52:33
I'm constantly looking for new stuff.
52:35
That's why I always ask this question because there's stuff
52:37
like that. And I'm definitely going to look
52:39
at persuasion after this. I've not read that book.
52:41
So we'll definitely be doing after this.
52:43
There's too many to go after. I mean, experts like the John
52:47
Millers of this world who always looking at what is the next
52:50
thing. Anyone who doesn't know John
52:52
Miller's the guy behind Marketo and used to be chief product
52:55
officer at the Mon bases, people like that.
52:58
But it's, it's a constant, it's a constant stream and there's
53:01
more and more coming all the time.
53:02
I think. So like you, do I have the time
53:04
to do it? No, but I I I've recently got a
53:06
dog so I make an effort to listen to podcasts when I've got
53:10
walking my dog so that helps. There is what I read last year,
53:15
I mean I was in London at an event with and Bob Moore, the
53:18
guy who runs Crossbeam and you'll know Crossbeam and reveal
53:21
that they merged. Yes, Bob came out with a really
53:23
good book as well called Ecosystem LED Growth, which is
53:26
if we're going to be successful, it's about partnering for
53:28
success and how going to market you can get your close rates up.
53:31
And not just channel partners and alliances, but just in
53:34
general this whole idea of, you know, the ecosystem all boats
53:37
rise together. So that's another one
53:39
potentially for your listeners as well, because it's a sales
53:41
and marketing channel type audience.
53:43
So really good by Bob Moore, the chief exec of Crossbeam.
53:46
Awesome. Thank you for that.
53:48
So I'm sure you've you've opened up lots of future conversations
53:51
that a we can have on a on another podcast, but also
53:55
there'll be listeners here who'll probably want to get in
53:56
touch with you after this. What's the best channel for them
53:59
to do that? Linkedin's always good or
54:02
e-mail, so it's swader.com. Swader is SUADA.
54:07
Swader is the goddess of persuasion.
54:09
So SU ada.com and it's David Thompson Thompson as in it used
54:13
to be Thompson holidays Thompson without P.
54:15
So feel free to hook up Connects up on
54:17
linkedinordropmeanemail.david@swader.com. And I'm barry@swader.com just
54:22
for the auspices of expedients. Excellent.
54:25
That's great. And what a great session.
54:27
As I say, I think we've opened opened the can of worms now and
54:30
we need to dig more into it. So hopefully you'll you'll agree
54:34
to come on on a future podcast. And and what you've proved to me
54:37
is that multiple guests really work.
54:38
So I'll definitely be looking at that in the future.
54:41
Thanks very much for your time. I hope you've enjoyed being on
54:43
this episode, and I hope everyone listening has enjoyed
54:46
it. And don't forget there's around
54:47
600 other episodes in the on base series, so make sure you
54:50
check them out. Thanks for listening everyone.
54:52
And until the next time, Cheerio.
54:54
Cheers. Thank you.
54:57
Thanks for joining us for On Base.
54:59
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