Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 182: Being “me” focused during sales calls is slowly killing our connection with prospects

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182: Being “me” focused during sales calls is slowly killing our connection with prospects · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sales Bluebird podcast where we help cybersecurity companies grow sales faster.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a seller, marketer, leader, or founder, we give you tips, tricks, experiences, examples, ideas, and inspiration from people who know a thing or ten by voting great cybersecurity companies.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and today we are talking about a scourge of go-to-market teams and what they put out there in the world in cybersecurity.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Something that is slowly killing any possible connection that they're trying to get with their ideal prospects in the marketplace.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the endless need we seem to have to make everything about us, about me, about our company, and about our product.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you look around to what you see, and in fact, maybe even what you yourself do, it is everywhere.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: But it can be fixed.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, a simple mental shift can be all that it takes to make a difference.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: And what that will result in is have prospects better connect with you, want to connect with you on calls, and want to work with you going forward as well.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But look, it's tough, right?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: We spend all our time building this fantastic, innovative, groundbreaking product.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Our engineering teams are heads down.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: They're building amazing things in a short period of time.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: What we can do to completely change cybersecurity is what is the mission that we're on, right?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to create something that's going to make a big difference.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about our innovations.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: We're trying to build amazing features.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: We're getting funding from very sophisticated people.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're sending millions of dollars at us to keep going on this mission and keep developing our product.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what this means is that we keep building this amazing thing that is bringing, that we're bringing to market or is being brought to market.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we're pretty proud of what it's all about.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: All that is about us.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then we need to talk with prospects and get them on board with this.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: We want them to be excited about it too.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: If they just had a modicum of excitement that we do, they might see the world through our lens and might want to actually buy this.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to get them to take a risk and spend real money and also, in many respects, some career capital on their behalf to start working with our startup.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: But they don't care about all our amazingness, right?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: They really don't.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: They've got their own problems to work on and they've got their own amazingness that they have.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: They just care what this could do for them.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: They don't care what we do, they care about what we could do for them.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the aha here is when interacting with prospects, we need to move from an all-about us perspective and lens to an all about the prospect mindset.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: If we bring our mindset around so it really is starting with an all about the prospect, then we can make that mental shift so that when we show up to calls working with potential prospects, that we have the right way of working with them.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Everything that we do should start with the mental model of the prospect.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: A quick break to say that this episode is sponsored by the security funded newsletter.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Staying on top of all the latest news of the business of cybersecurity is really hard.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are thousands of cybersecurity companies and hundreds of VCs all doing new things all the time.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's really hard to keep up with all of it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: I've been reading the security funded newsletter for the last six months and look forward to seeing it appear in my inbox every Monday morning.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's written by Mike Prevet, who is a CISO himself and who also advises startups and investors on the business side of cybersecurity.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Each week, Mike covers the latest news and insights on cybersecurity funding, including investment trends, funding runs, new startup launches, and analysis and commentary.
• 4:52
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• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a founder, investor, or just someone who wants to stay informed about this rapidly evolving industry, the security funded newsletter has something for you.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: I highly recommend you subscribe right now at salesbluebird.com slash funded.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's salesbluebird.com slash funded.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to the discussion.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's make this a little bit more real.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to take two situations where we're interacting with prospects.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And uh one of them is from a very early stage funnel, someone looking at our website.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then the second one might be looking at our sales decks.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to go out there and I'm going to look at uh four websites of companies that I believe are not doing a great job of making all about the prospect.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, uh out the gate, the first interaction that you have with this company is all about them.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So let's look at the first one on my list here is Zscaler, a highly successful company, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Grown over the last 20 years to unbelievable heights.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the web page right now, and the first thing I do, I see, is secure your users' workloads and IoT, OT.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Join us for this live event featuring voices from the industry's undisputed leader in Zero Trust.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Zscaler, the creator of the Zero Trust Exchange platform, uses the largest cloud, security cloud on the planet to make doing business and navigating change a simpler, faster, and more productive experience.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at what they're doing, they're out the gate talking about themselves.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: What they have as their image, it looks like, I don't know, it looks like uh their conference, right?
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: That uh maybe they were talking at.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um look at the words that they use.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: They start in the second thing I talked about, Zscale.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: They start themselves.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Zscale are the creator of the Zero Trust Exchange.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we do, and aren't we amazing?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: We created something amazing.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: We, we, we.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then we go down the next section.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: What we do, we help you, right?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: We, we, we at the start.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: And then at the end of this, they tag on what it means for the prospect.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But the orientation that this would say to me is it's it's they start with talking about themselves.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Even on here it says, get ready for Zenith Live 23.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what Zenith Live is, but I'm gonna guess it's their user conference.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: So get ready for our amazing conference, right?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Not about, well, why what are you gonna get from attending it?
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um so there's one that uh it starts off with a lot about them.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: The Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what it is it's an integrated platform of services, blah, blah, blah.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Not much really starting with the prospect, the customer, the big advantages they're gonna get from working and going to Zscaler.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Next one on my list is Fortinet.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, been around for ages, had huge periods of growth.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: No idea if they're still growing.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: They're a public company, though, right now.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um here's something that just gets me.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So Fortinet out there at the gate on their homepage.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Good whole bunch of headings there, a whole bunch of menu items.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Here we are, a leader positioned highest in ability to execute, recognized in the 2022 Garden of Magic Quadrant for the 13th time.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Today's enterprises require a new approach to cybersecurity.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: The Fortinet Cybersecurity Fabric.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: Fabric.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: The cybersecurity fabric brings together the concepts of convergence and consolidation to provide comprehensive cybersecurity protection, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: Security mesh architecture, they've given their own four-letter acronym, CSMA, is an architectural approach that promotes why we're wonderful and it's just incredible.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we do interoperability, interoperabilities.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of going off script here a little bit, but yeah, but then then then.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then next bit, latest from Fortinet.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, aren't we amazing?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: You should hear all about us.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and on and on it goes.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So if you look at their site, um, it starts off with saying, we're amazing.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I get it what they're trying to do.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to say, you know, credibility, right?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're positioned highest in the ability to execute in the magic quadrant for firewalls.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I get what they're trying to do, but it's it's uh it's a me.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're aren't we amazing?
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the wording they use on their website starts with them all the time.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Fortinet security fabric, cybersecurity mesh architecture, all about them.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got this amazing innovation that's come out.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that incredible?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: Next one I can go down to.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I don't know why these are the uh more of the old guard that are doing this.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh checkpoint.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, again, highly successful for many years, but at an interesting stage in their development 25 years in.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh first thing I see is something about we just moved on.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: First thing I see is something about CPX360.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the industry's premier cybersecurity summit and expo.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I think this is their um their user conference, maybe.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the first thing they're talking about is them and their user conference.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're the industry's premier summit and expo.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: Register now.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then on their carousel, the next thing that comes up, oh, here we go.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: It must be the fireall magic quadrant time because checkpoint 23 times a liter.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: What did uh Fortinet say 13 times?
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh checkpoint 23 times a liter.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Checkpoint named a liter in the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't we uh just uh fantastic?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Next thing on their um on their carousel here.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um there's fourth uh images on their carousel.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm up to three now.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Third one, quantum cybersecurity platform Titan release.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh AI deep learning block zero day DNS, phishing and IoT attacks.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so they this they've got some sort of new release.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: Don't know what all it does, but uh Titan release.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's a Titan release of their quantum cybersecurity platform.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing about prospect there whatsoever and what they might care about.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, just when you thought the Magic Quadrant was uh was bad enough, here we go.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: Forbes 2022, world's best employers.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: We are the world's leading cybersecurity employer, uh, according to Forbes, which is probably the ultimate pay-to-play magazine out there.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um so interesting choice there.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So that's their carousel.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then as you as you go down, recommended for you.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: They've got some articles, it looks like.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh one from GigaOm, which uh quasi-independent ESG uh article, article.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh again, more about them.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: 23 times a leader in Magic Quadrant, again, 100,000 customers, check trust checkpoint.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: One out of four, what is this, global Fortune 500 companies use uh checkpoint, etc., all about them.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally they get into some stuff of what they actually do.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh protect your enterprise network, secure the cloud from there.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: But if you look at it, it starts off all about them.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna quickly wrap up with one more here.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh slightly uh less established company, although a reasonable size is still the same, is iBoss.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's look at what iBoss says.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh iBoss, purpose built for zero trust to protect organizations from breaches and data loss.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um the iBoss Zero Trust Edge starts with them, the IBOS Zero Trust Edge.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: Unrivaled Global Cloud Security Fabric, network security fabric, a containerized architecture built for infinite scalability.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: IBoss created and operates with the largest global cloud network, blah, blah, blah.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: About them, IBOS.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Unrivaled, we are unrivaled.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have a containerized uh architecture.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: We do 150 billion transactions daily.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: We, we, we, 4 billion threats prevented daily.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Aren't we amazing?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: You get the idea.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: You look at the tone of how these companies are presenting them to the market is we, we, we, we, we are amazing.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: We got this amazing stuff.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: We're innovative, and people like Gardner think we're awesome.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, you should do too.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I would argue that uh, you know, I get why they're doing it, but I would argue that not very effective way for someone, uh, if I'm going to their site to uh learn more about what's latest for them and what they're doing, I'm not gonna get that by looking at this, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: Looking at these websites.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna hear how awesome they think they are, but uh that's about it.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about the next thing I talked about, which was sales decks, um I don't have any examples to show, to go through here with you, but let me see, let me uh couple two or three things I I see quite a bit.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that happens quite a lot still is that the decks uh that are used start on the first or second page with the who we are, right?
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some founders, uh, maybe some uh investors, maybe some logos from existing customers are on there as well.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and again, you know, there's a there's a reason why that's there.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's not completely stupid to have it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but what you're doing is you're starting off your deck talking about ourselves, yourself, and how we're amazing.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we got this amazing funding.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And look at our founders.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: They just find this amazing thing and they got this amazing career, and you know, you usually drop some names in there, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: So they're amazing, amazing, amazing.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it all starts with them.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't start with the prospect.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then usually from there it continues into uh the second thing, which is a tone of here's what we do.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: We do this and we do that, and we got this thing that does this, and we got this innovation that does that, and we've got this product that does this, and here's our architecture and how it all works.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you end up talking at them for a period of time all about what we do.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And again, the tone is about us as opposed to about the prospect.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then the final thing is um that uh is a giveaway that you're uh got a model around us and we and what we do is when most of the deck that you present is product-oriented, right?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's about the product, it's about how it works, and it's about the different features it has.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it tends to be lower-level stuff when you get down to that sort of level, right?
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the features it has, the capabilities it has, what we call things, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a dead giveaway.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got this thing and we call it some buzzwordy thing.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's either a buzzwordy thing or it's something that might have been out of Game of Thrones, right?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, our new Titan platform, was that the checkpoint one or the Fortnite one?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't remember.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our new Titan platform, right?
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Very product-oriented.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's a dead giveaway about a situation where we're talking too much about ourselves.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do about this?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if the real question a prospect is asking is, what could do this, what could this company do for me?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then we need to think about what we could actually do for them.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if we're doing that, what we're gonna do is start with the problems that we solve.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's what's gonna resonate most with them.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: They're in the mode, usually, of not saying, I'm really excited to learn about this new company and just on a whim, figure out what they do.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very few people have the time and inclination to do that.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: Their usual starting point is I've got a whole bunch of shit to deal with.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And some of it's not working very well, some of it's working decently.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I want to know if in this area, whatever that area might be, this company is going to help solve my problems in that area, right?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's the lens that they're bringing to this.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: So let's go back to a couple of websites that I think do this better than most.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, first one is a company called Blumira, B-L-U-M-I-R-A.com.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Cybersecurity company funded by 1011 Ventures.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they start off on their homepage with finally a sim for your small team.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the text goes on to say, you've got enough to worry about.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: Ransomware at Tex are constantly making headlines, and compliance changes are difficult to keep up with.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: You deserve a low maintenance SIM that's easy to use and fits your budget.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: Deploys in minutes and then free for Microsoft 365.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: So here's a company that goes after SMB, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: They're not a big enterprise hunter right now, but they've nailed the messaging for that SMB.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: So the small team, I think, is the illusion there.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, Mike tweak some of the language they use in that second paragraph.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you've got enough to worry about, you know, things like that.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's very prescriptive.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what they're trying to do at least is orientate everything around their prospect so that the prospect looks like, yeah, you know, I do have enough to worry about.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Ransom attacks are killing me.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm fed up with dealing with them.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: I've got compliance audits up the up the yin-yang.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have to deal with these all the time.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a big team, uh, and I need some tool that's going to be reasonably cost-effective to help me figure this out, right?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so they could do a good job there.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: The next big headline, get your time back, we'll do the heavy lifting.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing in there, really, about them is we'll do the heavy lifting.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And even that is not a, you know, we've got this new Titan platform thing that does amazing things.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, is literally the heading says, get your time back, we'll do the heavy lifting.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: And their headlines below that, the subheadings are all about the customer.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Less time in the dark, less time on compliance, faster security value.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: And they, if you dig deeper into the paragraphs below those subheads, again, the focus, the tone of it is all about them.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it does go on to say, here's how we help, but the first thing they do, the tone of it, is all about the prospect.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So this is much better aligned to trying to connect with the prospect like that.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: Another company that I think does a decent job is a company called Sonri Security.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So that's S-O-N-R uh S O N R A I.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Sonri Security.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh S-O-N-R-A-I-security.com.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: So it starts off with eliminate privilege, access, and lateral movement risk in your cloud.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And this is an interesting one, just as an aside, um, there's active language and passive language.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um what they could have said is eliminate privilege, access, and lateral movement risk in the cloud, right?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there it's just, you know, it's very kind of third-party.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: But what they're doing is talking to me in your cloud.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um down below, identity controls are central to enterprise plans for cybersecurity.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then going down below, connect the dots, eliminate relationships that create toxic risk.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: So there's things going fast that I can read it here.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, eliminate useless alerts, right?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's the language, operationalize and fix.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just visualize issues, but remediate them.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: These are this is the language I'm seeing here coming through.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then down below, they they get a bit more into what they do, but it's you know, complete cloud security in one platform.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, see must fix vulnerabilities.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: So I can, as a prospect, I'll be able to see must fix vulnerabilities, uh, et cetera, et cetera.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: So there's two companies on the website that if you look at what they're doing, their tone is much more aligned to their prospect than the first batch that I gave you.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a good sign that their company and what they're doing is oriented towards that.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now let's think about the sales decks, right?
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um the examples I gave before of symptoms of the tone not being quite right.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I would do, my personal recommendation always is put that slide that's all about us in the deck, but towards the end or right the end, right?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: The one that says, here's our founders, here's our investors, here's some logos of customers that we've won, uh, things like that.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: We've been in business for however long and blah, blah, blah.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: Put that in there, put at the end, right?
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you think about the flow of a conversation, you make it all about the prospect, you're talking about their problems and how you're going to attack them and help them and solve problems.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, then the end, the thing is, by the way, you might be asking, you know, are we the right team to work with, the right company to work with to solve that?
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we've actually got some blue chip investors, we've got some really well-known customers already that are validating what we're doing, and uh, we've got the experience in the team to pull this off for you.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you so the tone is all about them, and then don't worry, we've got your back.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be there for you, we know what we're doing, rather than all the way around, which is let me tell you all about how awesome we are, before we even start to talk about yourself and uh and what that's all about.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So put that put that slide towards the end.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and also align to that rather than uh starting with things the tony is that here's what we do, and here's what we do, and we're amazing, and we've got this thing and all the rest of it.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Orientate the start of the deck all around the problems that you solve for prospects, right?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Have a slide which is the problem.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Slide, or maybe a couple of slides about the problem slide, depending on the types of teams that you deal with.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: And use that to drive a conversation with the prospect.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: You think about it.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: The usual thing is, you know, salesperson, uh, sales leader, whoever it is, pulls out the deck and the prospect's thinking, here we go, I'm gonna get talked at for a while.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: I want to pay attention, I want to learn, but this person's gonna talk at me for a while, right?
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: And they're gonna tell me how awesome they are and all the things they do.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: What if you broke that up and said, listen, I'm gonna use this first slide here to drive a deeper conversation?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when when I when we usually talk to transportation companies like yourselves, here's the types of challenges that they express to us.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, is this what you're experiencing as well?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: You mentioned in our discovery this, this is a good example of that, right?
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about them.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: You're bringing up some credibility by knowing the types of problems that they're facing, um, but you're doing it in the context of your prospect.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: The tone is all about the prospect's problems and not all about us.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: The reason that we want to do that is if the prospect believes that you understand their problem, you nailed it even before they've nailed it, right?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: You just completely understand the world that they're in and the hurt they're in, they're much more likely to believe that you have the solution to the problem.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you so that's why you want to do it, right?
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you nail that conversation, you nail the statements that says, we see this all the time.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Prospects, you know, people like yourselves have these sorts of challenges.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It usually means they're frustrated and fed up with how this is going.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And then you invite them into the conversation and you've you've nailed it, and you they're much more likely to lean in and engage with you and believe that you're you know what you're talking about and you're the right company to do business with.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that goes to our third thing when we talked about sales decks was product oriented, right?
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're turning that away from being product oriented, we're turning it towards being problem-oriented.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these are the problems that we see.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: These are problems you told us that you had, and by the way, here's how we can fix them.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the call, the other side to that uh that I was talking about before is when you say, here's all the things that we can do, and by the way, some of your problems might have been in there as well.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: We might solve some of those things.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: If we orientate around the problems that people will want to do business with us.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: So let me wrap this up.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you find yourself orientating around, we do this, and here's what we've been doing, and here's what we can do, and here's what we have built, and here's how amazing we are, even if you don't say it like that, you need to stop yourself, right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Stop yourself from doing that.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Change the tone and start everything you engage with the prospect from the standpoint that uh the prospect is what matters and their problem is what matters.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, they're asking themselves the question, what could do this, what could this company do for me?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the question that we need to answer for them.
• 25:35
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• 25:40
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• 25:53
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• 25:57
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• 26:04
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• 26:07
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• 26:11
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• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for joining me today, and I'll see you next time on Sales Bluebird.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget that what you do is important, and I'm rooting for you in 2023 and beyond the