Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 187: Why and how you implement value selling with Russell Coleman

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187: Why and how you implement value selling with Russell Coleman · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: A theme building up now over the last few episodes is the idea around selling value and what it really means.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the seller that I know that epitomizes value selling the most is Russell Coleman.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just in his blood, it's how he operates, everything he does is around selling value.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I think you're gonna get a lot from this episode, so stick around.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Sales Bluebird Podcast, where we help cybersecurity companies grow sales faster.
• 1:09
  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 10 about building great cybersecurity companies.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Our guest today is Russell Coleman, multi-time security seller and leader.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Russell, welcome to Sales Bluebird.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andrew, longtime listener and first-time participant, and I'm glad to be here.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, it's great to have you on and glad to hear that you're a longtime listener.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I uh it's good to hear from people who listen who tune in every week or once in a while.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm looking forward to this episode, Russell.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know I say that every time, but this is going to be an interesting one.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I think for everyone and certainly for me as well, to learn a little bit.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we throw around in the sales world the idea, oh, you must sell value, and you know, I'm a value seller and all this sort of stuff, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And um, maybe a little bit harsh, but I think a lot of people play it being a value seller.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they kind of latch onto the idea of it and maybe go with their impression of what it really means and say, yep, yep, I sell value all the time.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll tell you what, you know, what I found, you and I uh interacted at uh one of my clients a couple of years ago.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, you epitomize the idea of being a value seller.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Everything about how you do things is thought out in terms of being a value seller.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm keen to understand from you today what that really means, how you go about doing it, and uh what a cybersecurity company could get from from doing it.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So it's gonna be an interesting conversation.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but uh before we get there, um, let's get to know a little bit about you.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my list of 35 questions here.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: As a longtime listener, you know how this this works.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: Give me three numbers between one and thirty-five.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with eight.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Eight.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: One song you would listen to for the rest of your life.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: So it's gonna have to be something by Bob Dylan.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think my favorite Dylan song that's got enough nuance and story to it would probably be uh Tangled Up in Blue.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, tell me more about that.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Bob Dylan Ballads.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's one of those types of songs where there's a central character uh who's kind of going through their journey of life, um, all sorts of different adventures and and learnings along the way.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I think it's just uh a beautiful poem and then uh you know nice instrumentals behind it as well.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and Bob Dylan is part of a a genre of artists who are great storytellers, right?
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just suck you in and you get involved in the lyrics and the people that uh are on a journey in the song.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh when people do that well in all sorts of world lives, especially in music, uh it's very powerful.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: One more number, team more than 35.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go 22.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Which cybersecurity startup do you admire most right now?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's a really good one.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Which one do I admire most?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: There's definitely a lot that I admire.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'd I'd say a lot of what def defines what I admire is company culture.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And uh just from the outside, I don't have uh super close ties to this company, but uh Jupyter One is a company that's been built by long-term security practitioners and leaders.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And just what I see of how Jupyter One engages with the market, you know, it it's they seem to do a good job of avoiding buzzwords, of being very straightforward, of focusing on customer outcomes and and results.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, it's it's kind of rare to see that um these days, especially as it's really hard to stand out.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: One of the topics you bring up a lot on the podcast is how do you stand out from the noise?
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a company like Jupyter One uh does a good job at at standing out by intentionally not falling into some of those traps that companies do fall into when they try to stand out.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no doubt.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we had Erkang CEO on the podcast last year.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: What a great guy.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I really got the sense from the conversation.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: He was being very intentional about how he was building that company.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it was pretty impressive as he as he told me all about it.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: One more number, too, more than 35.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's go with 34.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: 34.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: Where in the world would you like to live?
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: My sales instincts are kicking at.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to answer that question without a couple clarifications.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Is this permanently or is this uh you know for a six months since?
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one place you'd like to live for at least a year or two before you die.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a good one.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um I've spent time uh living in Europe, I've spent time living in South America and of course North America here in the US.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd I'd say somewhere in Asia, um, probably the most realistic would be getting some kind of assignment in Singapore for uh, you know, one to two years and checking out what a truly world-class city within a really small country kind of business hub that that Singapore has become.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh from what I understand, English is one of the primary official languages, so I wouldn't have too much of a language barrier to deal with.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I haven't been there for quite a while, but I did spend some time there, you know, quite a few years ago.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you're right, English is accepted as a language.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: The thing that a lot of people don't, well, most people don't realize about Singapore is that uh the food is amazing, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: If so it's got that that uh intersection of Indian food, uh Chinese, and then the Thai kind of Vietnamese influence, as well as British food, is got a combination of those three or four influences make for amazing food.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the street food in Singapore is is just awesome.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm even more sold.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm getting hungry right now just thinking about it.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, Russell, how did you first make money as a kid?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh, that's a good one.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the first, I guess, marketable skills that I picked up as a kid was pulling weeds in the yard.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that was something my dad hated doing himself, so he'd have me and my brother do it.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: And uh what we realized one summer, uh, there's a lot of other yards in the neighborhood, and we'd walk by and someone wouldn't have a lot of weeds in it.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: So we made up some flyers, went door to door, posted some flyers, and put up our uh landline home phone number on those flyers and started to get a few calls.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Was that uh for one summer or did you do it for longer?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a couple summers, and you know, it kind of led to what I'd say was our our best contract uh or our gig with that business.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there was a horse stable nearby, and they needed somebody to literally shovel the shit.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh it was it was great because it was um it was uh a job that uh you know always had uh fresh fresh work the next day.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: The weeds, you you you pick weeds and you weed a yard.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there aren't there aren't fresh weeds for a while, but yeah, those horses were busy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I bet they were.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And probably a good metaphor for getting into startup life as well, right?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I uh think back to those days.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: And what was your first real job?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so my my first job out of school, I I guess um I studied Spanish and political science, and and I had dreams of becoming either a lawyer or uh getting into diplomacy, kind of foreign service.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so I got a job in New York at a uh law firm that was a Spanish-speaking law firm, and essentially answered the phones, ran the desk.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um it was my uh what got me uh a foundation in New York City.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I only lasted for about a year in that before realizing that uh, you know, the legal job and in life as it's um portrayed on TV and in movies is a lot more glamorous than it is in real life.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's how I kind of wandered my way into and detect from there.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then recently you were at uh the head of commercial sales at a company called CoClimate.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the first deal that the you or the team won when you were at CoClimate?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And it, you know, I think um, you know, I inherited a team there.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm trying to think of like, all right, which one did I feel like as a leader there?
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I uh really guided and and coached one of my team teammates through.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And um, it was a deal that broke the record for largest deal uh close in that segment.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it was a deal that was generated outbound by one of our BDRs, um, which is always fun and exciting to work those types of deals and be able to drive that customer conversation from the very start.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then, you know, we we got it done.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was the last day of the quarter, one of those where we generated it and closed it in the same quarter and got it done on the last day.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: And it was also, you know, I think we're partnering up with this rep on my team, um, kind of the the first moment between the two of us.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: So we realized, hey, you know, we we can actually get a lot of value out of working together on these things, building bigger deals and uh and developing with it.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: A quick break to say that this episode is sponsored by Unstoppable.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you're at a startup, you know how difficult it can be to get consistent traction and revenue growth.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Everything seems harder than it should be.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's often a struggle to get the attention of security leaders.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And once you talk to them, it is frustrating that more first meetings don't turn into opportunities.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: It feels like these valuable meetings are being wasted.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Add in a slowdown, and suddenly you have to figure all this out with the people that you have and with a market that changes weekly.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Unstoppable only works with cybersecurity startups and helps you build your own playbooks.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: These are based on frameworks that have been proven over many years at companies similar to yours.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You will find you are guessing much less, converting through the funnel much better, and feeling more confident in reaching your goals.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, you will be growing sales faster.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Schedule a strategy call by going to salesbluebird.com slash growth.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: That's salesbluebird.com slash growth.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now back to the discussion.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when you win big deals and get the biggest deal in that segment of the market, um, that tends to come from uh selling value.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So let's move into that part of the conversation.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as I said before, you know, I I think uh lots of people have different ideas of what selling value really is.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's your definition or how do you think about what really selling proper value is all about?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: So from a simplest point of view, I think of it as an external or outward focus rather than an internal or inward focus.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is that the outward focus is focusing on each specific customer's results uh that you can drive for them, versus the inward focus, which is spending most of the time thinking about, talking about, discussing your company's products.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: So you make it more about the customer's problems and the value to their enterprise than you make it about your own products and services.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So what stood out for me there was you started by saying uh their outcomes, as opposed to necessarily us for sure, or their problems, even, right?
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're thinking about their outcomes.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: Tell me more about that.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: So at the end of the day, anybody that's in business is in business to grow their business, to drive success, to improve their bottom line.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: If we're talking Fortune 500 type companies, uh, you know, they're they're there to drive shareholder value.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, whatever that may be, it is different for companies of different phases.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: The business outcomes and focusing on them are usually going to be defined in terms of increased revenue, reduced cost, or reduce risk.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And anything that you're you're building with the customer uh kind of needs to build up to or relate to uh driving one of those three major metrics.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how you can help somebody who is focusing on tactical problems or something that's really important and nitty-gritty for their particular role.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you can help them understand and figure out how that ties to the overall business goals, you're gonna be broadening that person's horizons.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna be accelerating uh their time to value and actually helping that person within their organization make a bigger impact than just focusing on, you know, hey, this here is my job.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um so when I think about outcomes, it's it's about kind of business outcomes for the organization that you're selling to, but there's also a personal outcome element of it as well.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: That person that's that's engaging with me as a seller and spending time with me, I want to figure out what are their ambitions, what are the stakes for them if they can get this right or solve this kind of big high impact problem for their business.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think one of the things that uh I hear people say about attaching to bigger outcomes the company um value uh is that those middle level people don't know that, right?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: They they're they're in their little bubble, they're focused on their team, um, trying to do things in a certain way with their team, and they don't sometimes they don't have visibility into it even, or or sometimes they just choose not to engage.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: How have you found that?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you agree with that?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Or how do you address that when you come up against it?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would agree with that.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it is, you know, occasionally you will get somebody who's who's kind of within that level, and part of their career journey that they're going on is trying to attach, you know, their department or their group's focus to the bigger outcome.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And those types of folks are great to work with because um they're kind of naturally looking for a partner or a salesperson to kind of help them on that journey.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and they and they typically have some self-awareness that they don't necessarily um have that attachment to the highest level business initiatives.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: You'll definitely come across folks who struggle with that.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: And as a seller, this is where I take a lot of pride and you know, try to coach people to uh also take a lot of pride in helping this person who has a very specific, you know, often very technical skill set that's incredibly valuable to their business.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: If you can help them get better aligned with, get more attached to, um, find that connectivity to the overall business mission.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, you, you, as the salesperson who um has worked with a lot of different organizations that has driven projects that connect to all their all sorts of different levels, you've got a pretty unique point of view that you can bring and help that person build their projects so that it's getting the attention of the right folks at the at the top level.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um that helps you get the sale done, but it also helps uh your champion who's working on a tactical problem understand the strategic uh problem that that that tactical problem connects to.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I like that a lot.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: What would you say is more important, the the personal outcomes or the business outcomes?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a tough one.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I think I think you can close good business and you know make an impact within an organization.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: You you could do that without understanding the personal outcomes and kind of getting on that personal level.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You can't really sell a large deal or sell a transformation or or drive change in an organization without understanding the attachment to those business outcomes and building your solution uh with those business outcomes in mind.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because at some point up the lines of approvals, whether it's procurement or it's um an executive uh kind of deciding, hey, which are our which which of these projects are a top priority, um, that's where the business outcome needs to show through.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of the the table stakes.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then understanding those those personal outcomes of a champion or or group of champions that you're working with, um, that can really grease the wheels in building that bigger business context.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: If you can uh kind of signal to that person, hey, I'm I'm in it for your personal win to get to that personal win.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: We've got to figure out together how to go get a business win.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's that's insightful.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, at some point someone has to say, why are we doing this?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer can't be because I want prom I want to get a promotion or I want my bonus or whatever it's good.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be something that they attach to.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um justification happens anyway, whether we like it or not.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's whether we are involved and help it, I guess, is is the way to think about it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, it it's uh it's one of the things that we talk about a lot in in the sales world, uh, you know, get to that personal impact and the personal outcomes and all the rest of it.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but actually doing it can be tough, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're we're not always uh in the same room.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're over at some sort of you know video conference with these people quite a lot.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: And uh if there's more people in the room, you know, people don't tend to open up that much.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you had any tips for the listeners about how best to do that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: I can definitely speak to what's worked for me and some of the reps on my team.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: I I think the the first thing is uh you can't be everything to everybody.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're working with a group of different stakeholders, um, you've you've kind of got to pick your person that you're gonna make this more personal investment with or a couple people that that could be that champion.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then also pick your spot.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um in every sales call, uh part of the best practice is asking for feedback, gauging kind of where where are we at?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: Have we shown this person um enough value that we can start to ask those questions that get a little bit deeper, that get almost to that personal level?
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's it's kind of a combination of picking the right people within the organization that that can be your champion, can and are going to be willing to go to that personal level, and also picking uh the spot of when to do it.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Have we earned enough um juice or have we have we shown enough value um that we can pull that off and and uh be welcomed to it?
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: Now, from like a tactical like execution perspective, once you've kind of made those decisions, the best thing to the best way to do that is to establish a channel of communication that's outside of the formal sales process.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so whether that's trying to get on a text message basis with somebody maybe before the next big meeting that you have scheduled, say, send them an email, say, Hey, can I um can I give you a quick call?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Or here's my number, can you give me a call anytime 10 minutes today?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: I just want to get your take on a couple of things.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and and often that's a really good way to do it is invite them to call you specifically, um, you know, rather than asking for a personal cell number.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised at how many people just pick up the phone and say, hey, you know, what's up?
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: How can how can we prepare for this thing tomorrow?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that's your first opportunity to establish, hey, this is this is me and you working together to go solve this bigger context.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it can be done, right?
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: You just gotta be be thoughtful about how you go about doing it, it sounds like, right?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yep, absolutely.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and get out of this mindset that like every step of the sales process has to be a formal, scheduled, pre-scheduled meeting.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_01: If you operate that way, you're never gonna break through and kind of signal to somebody that, hey, I'm willing, I'm willing and able to operate with you person to person and you know, outside of the formal context.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so we talked about the idea that it's it's outside in, right?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's prospects and their outcomes first.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about why a cybersecurity company, a sales team, why would they build a value selling uh motion into what they're doing?
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I think it depends on the stage of the company, but often, and at least in my experience, I'm working at or with earlier stage companies that are getting ready to scale their sales teams.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's three really good reasons.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: One is it it aligns with how modern buyers buy.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: The second is it creates really massive internal efficiencies.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then finally, with the framework setup, it allows for iteration and evolution as companies and markets mature.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if you get really good at executing a framework, the content of that framework within that framework can change without it feeling like you're uprooting the entire sales organization or uprooting the entire uh go to market organization and saying we have we have to do things completely differently.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it's more like plugging different pieces or different content into a framework that should apply for the lifetime of a company.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I like that then.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: So let me play that back to you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: You you create the framework of how to go to market around this this.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: Value selling methodology.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then what changes as you evolve and as you learn, I guess, um, is the individual bits of content in there as opposed to the the overall framework itself.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: Is that am I reading that right?
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: So therefore, you know, when you when you do have things that don't work, which is going to be natural, right?
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: You don't tear everything up and just rebuild from the ground up.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: You just look within the framework to say, what do we have to adjust and test now to see if this works?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, one thing that I've experienced as a rep and as a leader, yeah, is uh, you know, I think many reps would would say this stability is so key for them to feel comfortable focusing and doing their job.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_01: And so how do you drive, how do you maintain stability while also driving fast change and scaling a company that's growing really fast and a rapidly changing market?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so, you know, again, the the framework works to help reps keep, okay, I don't need to learn an entire new different way to sell, um, but I can plug and play and experiment with different pieces within it.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: I would imagine it takes discipline, though, to stick to the framework and stick to the plan.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh that not always the easiest thing to do to uh to implement one of these successfully, and it absolutely requires buying and conviction uh across the business and at every level of the sales organization.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let's talk about that then.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I was at a company uh a few years back, and this is my first real uh experience with a value selling methodology.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: And um it was not good because the company didn't follow through.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was not the shortcomings of the framework that they were using or anything else.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was really just the the sales leadership just didn't uh get behind it and really support it.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's one of these things that when when uh things are going well, it's all very nice and easy and everyone coasts along, and then suddenly you realize, oh shit, we're gonna have to drop our forecast, we're gonna have to this, that, and that.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And suddenly everything just goes by the wayside as everyone scrambles to try and, I don't know, save the quarter or whatever it might be.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that that company was kind of in that mode where they, I don't know, there wasn't much discipline anyway up top.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: When when companies do try and do this, what other pitfalls do they fall into, do you think, that might jeopardize their ability to get uh success from a value framework?
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: So so that definitely is a big factor.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_01: And like you mentioned, um, that the kind of stage where this type of framework becomes really valuable is also a stage in a company's growth trajectory that is especially chaotic and frenetic.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, maybe you've got a couple of sellers who are in place or an early DP or even founder-led sales at an organization, and they've kind of had their success selling the way that they do.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of it is in their brains.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, they haven't necessarily got it down on a paper.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: And now all of a sudden, okay, now we're gonna have to enable 12, 15, 20 reps to do this.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: So it inherently comes in at a time or often comes in at a time where there's a lot of chaos and changes.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that's that's one thing that makes it difficult.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of times, especially for uh technical founded or technical led companies from the early stage, it feels really hard to abandon what's gotten them this far, which often comes in the terms of warm introductions from VC networks.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: It comes in terms of uh, you know, hiring sellers who bring uh a network with them and can get those early meetings with people who are known friendlies and known early adopters.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's one of the toughest things to kind of wrap wrap your head around when you're going through this change is um, you know, that's stuff that worked before.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's not necessarily going to work to get you to that early majority type of uh of customer base.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: You could read a lot into the uh crossing the chasm concept.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I if if done correctly and followed through with, adopting a value selling framework can be a great way to drive through that chasm um and into uh the proper scale-up mode.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I see that, you know, in the work that I do with companies, I do see that where, you know, there's a kind of intrusive feeling maybe that uh we kind of have to move on.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: But moving on doesn't necessarily mean we we stopped what worked before.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it's tough to just kind of realize that it's not that we're saying that's all wrong.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a case of putting it into a slightly different framework to then build on as you hire in going forward.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh sometimes a tough thing for people to really believe is gonna work for them.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think with anything, you have to see results pretty quickly to actually get buy-in with something.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a big launch, you can have a big rollout, um, you know, kind of drag people through the glass a little bit, say, hey, we're we're convinced on this, we're committing to it, and we're gonna do it.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: But then if if reps aren't seeing pretty quick results and seeing that, hey, this is something that I can actually use to more money, to hit my quota, to be more successful, then you're gonna have uh a tough time making it stick.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think one of the toughest things about this is and potentially where some of these companies fail to go beyond that initial execution is it's not a knowledge problem.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a behavior change problem.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, tell me more about that.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: So in in the cybersecurity sales world, everybody's hiring people that are smart who can pick up and absorb new information, process it.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, that that tends to not be too much of a problem.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can roll something out, you can teach people this in theory.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: What's much tougher is to get them to actually change their behavior.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I'm I'm sure I know that you're you're you operate in this space in enablement, right, Andrew?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you can teach somebody and they can say, Yep, I get it.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: I can spit back that uh that knowledge that you just taught me.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can take a test on it.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I'm uh treating it from like a knowledge perspective.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_01: You could have somebody that is like 100% seems like they're ready to go.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: You ask them to go out in the field, or maybe you check back with them six months later, say, hey, how has it been going?
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: Have you been using that?
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if they haven't been using it, if they haven't gotten into the habit of it, then all of that knowledge, they could maybe still take that test and ace it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but they haven't they haven't put that knowledge into practice.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um I think that's that's where uh to do this properly, you know, if if you're in an organization that has frontline sales leaders, getting their buy-in to bake this framework into every step of their process, every deal inspection, every forecast meeting, even every pipeline generation meeting or or review with their team, that that role of the frontline manager in driving adoption is really important.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: I I could not agree more.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I've been doing this this whole behavior change thing now for gosh, almost 10 years.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I I know going into working in a program, simply based on whoever the first line manager is, whether that's this is gonna be a success or not.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really as simple as that.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: What is their willingness to, when things aren't going great, keep driving and keep supporting their team and making sure this sticks, and who are the ones that are gonna the first sign of uh you know something shiny over somewhere else saying, Yeah, let's not do that anymore.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, I look at you know, my clients that have done really well and those that um have not done so well, it's almost always how things are enforced or how things are supported, that's probably the better word, at that first line.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the first line might be the CRO, it might be the the head of sales, right?
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: It might be because it's early stage companies.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's it's gotta be a collective thing that we're gonna do this.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh we see see it again and again where you know behavior change is not easy, uh and let's not discount that, right?
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: You've got you bring people in, as you were saying, right?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, where I found it at early stage companies, they're not hiring people with one year experience, right?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: They're hiring people with 10, 15 years experience.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they they know how to sell.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, can they adapt the way that the company wants to sell going forward?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's it can for some it's easier, for some it's it's a lot harder.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think one thing that you you would see if you kind of pull um the successful companies, the companies that have broken through that, you know, let's say 10 million to 100 million up to 500 million billion in revenue, you know, you you ask them what some of the key or core drivers of that success would be.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of them will tell you, we implemented a value selling framework.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, a lot of them will probably tell you they made some mistakes along the way and it didn't take at first, but they stuck with it.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it was the key to being able to scale their business.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I again, it it comes back to driving great outcomes for their customers who then go talk to their uh their peers about it and spreads that way.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: I'm wondering if you can think of a situation where you you you worked with someone who was a little bit of a arm folder, as I call them, um, but uh was able to come around and really get some some success.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Without naming names.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, sure, sure.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I um at at Hacker One when I was leading the AMIA group there, I had a a rep out of um I was working in the doc region, and he was incredible at so many different skills, and I had to keep in touch with him tonight.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: He's a good friend.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think ARP folder is like a good, a good uh good way to think about it.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: You know, he'd kind of done stuff that had worked for him in the past.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_01: He was generating pipeline and good business, and um, but he hadn't had exposure to the particular value sample selling framework we were working with at the time.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think in in his mind and a lot of folks' mind when this is new, it's it at first feels like a Salesforce or CRM hygiene exercise.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's always gonna feel initially like, all right, I'm doing this for the boss.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm doing this for management.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: And again, I'll I'll harp on that line of or that that role of the first line leader.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of up to that leader to show, okay, you know what?
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_01: I am asking you to do it for me for this first time.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then through deal inspection, through working that framework with them carefully and really being there, working it with them, show that you can go close a deal together.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we ended up closing um, you know, one of the larger deals in in AMIA at the time with uh a car company, and we had worked it together.
• 32:44
  SPEAKER_01: And there were definitely moments during that sales process where you know he was kind of throwing up his hands and being like, I don't know why you're like this this just feels like BS.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_01: The customer wants us to do X, Y, Z, fill out like whatever RFP, uh, you know, provide all this information.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, wait, we'll we'll do that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: Let's find out why they're really doing this project first and how that attaches to their big strategic business initiatives.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And we ended up finding out some really, really interesting information just by asking.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_01: Like it felt like an uncomfortable question to ask.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, the the VP of uh of security that we were talking to is thrilled to explain the business context to us.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think a lot of times it it feels like the type of question that um is uncomfortable to ask because you're going a little bit deeper beyond just the surface, um, the surface level.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: But if if done with the right intentions and and done at the right time when you're building trust, you know, it it just gets them pulling you in more to their reality.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I love that.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think also uh what I found is you know, when you really think about selling value and outcomes, and that's the orientation that you have, you're much more aligned to the senior people in that organization who are probably want to have that type of conversation as opposed to the one about, well, you know, what's the name of the project?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a cloud security project?
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, we have one of those.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, let me tell you how great it is, right?
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: They actually want to, you know, they're there for transformations.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're there to make a big impact.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we're just aligning ourselves to how they're thinking about things and how they're buying.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: You get referred to who you sound like.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the case uh with with this particular deal.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: You know, my my rep was thrilled when we got referred to the group CTO after having that conversation.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so it, you know, it it felt like magic at the time, but uh in in reality, there's a lot of thought that has gone into uh developing these frameworks and studying them.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's a ton of uh you know good books out there on it and uh you know a lot of great sales leaders who have factored this into how they how they build businesses.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: Any books that you would recommend off the top of your head?
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, one that I think is it it's almost like laughably old, but still like a really good foundation on this topic is spin selling.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I read reread it recently, and there's references to fax machines and like all this stuff from the 80s.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um but but it that was kind of like the, I don't know, in my perception, like the the grandparent of them all.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then a lot of those, you know, additional iterations on that, a little more modern versions along the way.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I think I think spin selling is kind of you know, what are the originals that I would recommend starting with if this concept's neat.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I I I've got an interesting relationship with spin.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So for years I would I didn't know what it was, but I I thought I did, right?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would uh I would always put it down, like what's this spin questioning?
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Ah, it sounds stupid, right?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I had the same experience as you.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_00: I read it uh properly, I don't know, like 10 years ago.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would argue that you could trace every modern uh uh methodology that you come across out there in the world back to the fundamentals of what what spin is really about.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I've seen some people uh really disparage it like I used to.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I just know yeah, you clearly hadn't read it, otherwise you wouldn't have those opinions because you know a lot of what we're doing today uh goes back to what uh what spin was all about.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a really powerful uh I think mindset is one, but just that kind of uh I don't know if it was a methodology, but just a way to approach conversations as well is is is really good.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I like that recommendation.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that kind of struck me is that you know there's definitely more organizations now who are trying to implement value selling frameworks, but why do you think more don't do it?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of people that don't.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's holding them back, do you think?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: So I I think there's there's probably a couple things.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, one I touched on a little bit already, which is that's usually not how companies achieve their early success.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, so so there's some of that, you know, hey, this is how we've done it before.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or you know, we sold our first million dollars worth of deals, you know, this way.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, why why go and change that?
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: I I think another another one, I mean, I I guess you kind of alluded to it, which is more of the managing to the quarter and uh kind of just lacking some of the discipline around, you know, hey, we need to be thinking years down the road rather than only and specifically how do we close the number this quarter.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I think that that uh kind of temptation to be driven by showing nice numbers to the board every quarter makes it tough to undertake uh a pretty, pretty significant investment in time, brain power, and money in some cases.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of uh consulting uh type firms who will come into an organization and um you know kind of help them go through the right steps to uh build out and then implement and roll out and and uh sustain one of these uh one of these efforts.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's uh it's not for the faint of heart, right?
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't go, well, let's give it a try for a couple of months.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the I guess the way to succeed.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you're right, they do have to have an element of commitment to the medium and long term to say this is how we're gonna actually build a meaningful company and doing it this way.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um let's let's wrap up by putting ourselves in the shoes of a CRO at a cybersecurity company right now.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they're not CRO but head of sales, maybe there's a small team of four or five and they're starting to get the traction, right?
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: And thinking about you know this year into next year.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: How would you recommend they just start with this?
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I guess there's a couple things.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: One one is the decision of you know when is the right time to do this.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I I think you kind of nailed it with with the the size of the company there.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, as we're going beyond uh a handful of sales reps that kind of feels like one singular cohesive team, and we're starting to look into additional teams, whether it's multiple regions, multiple segments, you know, enterprise versus a commercial segment, um, when you're starting to get to that level of complexity or thinking about that level of complexity, is like a good time to start thinking about it.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_01: The next would be how do you want to go about this?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Is this, do you have people in the organization already that have deep experience with this and can roll out a playbook that they've built out and executed before?
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Or is this something that you're gonna need outside help with?
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think regardless of which of those paths you go down, um, start talking to other executives about it, other departments.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I think one of the biggest factors in in efforts like this that end up failing is when it's seen as a sales-only training.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, okay, this is a sales training thing.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, here's some budget to do sales training.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's gonna do two things.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_01: One is you're not gonna establish a shared language across the whole business.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_01: Your sales team is gonna be speaking, you know, Spanish from Spain and the the rest of the organization speaking Spanish from Argentina.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a same language, but those are pretty different dialects, and there's a lot of room for uh confusion.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the big benefits, and you would miss out on that benefit.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I think it also is much harder to sustain, execute, behavior change around when it's a singular department doing it.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: And there's also really great thinkers, uh, of course, across the whole organization for um building out what content should go into this framework in the first place.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, the the the pulling in other people's perspectives is is super powerful, right?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, some of them are are really insightful, right?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: They bring a perspective that we don't often think about.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it does uh help a startup is easier, you know, it helps everyone be on the same page.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as you get a little bit bigger, it becomes easier and easier to fall apart a little bit, right?
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's where departments kind of go their own way.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: But uh yeah, it it seems like you know, as you're saying, so pick the time to start, um, figure out whether you've got the resources internally to do it yourself, and if not, uh can you find someone outside who can come and help?
• 41:10
  unknown: Uh-huh.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then involve everyone in the process to make sure that we're uh we're going the same direction.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_00: I remember uh uh slightly different topic, but I was talking to Andy Raskin uh last summer and he uh he's a godfather of strategic narrative, right?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one of the things that he learned in his business was only deal with the CEO on this.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: He said if the CEO is not on board with bringing everyone together, he said it's kind of pointless.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, he could go take the money and do the work and all the rest of it, but he knew that it uh you know it would fall apart within a couple of months of him walking out the door.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh at least the CEO is it's his project, his or her project, and they're good the capital to drive it forward.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: Because there are times when you're doing something like this where not everyone agrees, uh right.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: And there's there's this could there's uh disagreement in the ranks about what the value drivers might be really and all this sort of stuff.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: You need someone above to really hold it together and and really drive it through so there is an outcome that everyone can get behind and move forward.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: I love how you you can have that perspective around involving everyone in in that decision and driving it forward.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um well Russell, listen, I've I've enjoyed as always talking to you about value selling.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_00: I I learn something new every time I do it.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um if someone wants to continue the conversation with you and and keep in touch, what's the best way to do that?
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh probably the easiest way is on LinkedIn.
• 42:28
  SPEAKER_01: You can search for my name and Code Climate or Hacker One, my name will pop up.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then yeah, I think that's a good starting point.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_01: And then happy to jump off from there, jump on a call with it with anybody, um, talk about this or other topics and selling cybersecurity somewhere.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I appreciate you joining us and I wish you the best for the rest of the year.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is a lot of fun, Andrew.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me on.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, I'm really lucky to do this podcast and be able to reconnect with people I've worked with in the past and uh cross paths with, especially people I've learned as much from as I have for Russell.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's such a fun thing to do.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you may have quite a few takeaways from this.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you did.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: I've got three that I remember and stick out for me right now.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: First one is I guess not just for value selling, but a lot of things, it's the importance of that first level manager in making sure that what we train on, what we um build in terms of frameworks and how to sell is actually adopted and used.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in early stage companies, that first line manager is often the head of sales, whether they're called a VP of sales or a CRO, it might be.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in slightly bigger companies, if they've got two levels of management, and that proper first line manager is the person, it's such a key role to have.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, if you're in that type of role, you just gotta know that you know your company and your team and everyone can put a lot of effort behind this, unless you're the one that's constantly supporting everyone and driving it forward.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a fair chance that this is not gonna work.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: So just keep that in mind.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_00: Second thing uh that Russell talked about was the idea of this, you know, value selling being a framework, not like a piece of content or not even something to try or just a methodology.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_00: It really is a framework in which to operate.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a framework for the company to operate as you know, building content, as going to market, messaging, how we approach prospects.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: It really is that framework.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: And especially early stage companies, you know, things change so much, right?
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: Things we try that don't quite work.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're searching for the killer questions, the killer positioning, the things like that, it's gonna really make a difference for us.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the important thing is that what we do is we swap out things from the framework as opposed to think that we have to build a new framework every time something that we try does not work.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: And my last takeaway was very much related to that, was you know, done right when you have a framework, it's gonna create internal efficiencies by doing it that way.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: There's a vast, vast difference from, well, let's tear all that up and start again and start just building from the ground up and think about the stress that puts on the organization compared to saying, well, we've got the framework, all we have to do is change this piece over here or change one use case that we're selling into.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_00: Something like that, right?
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's so much easier and uh puts less than one of the whole organizations too.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, love that conversation with Russell.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's a great spot, do great things, uh really small bat.