Latest / Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth / 110: One tool to 3x your discovery

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110: One tool to 3x your discovery · Cyber Go-To-Market Talk: The Cybersecurity Podcast About Cyber Sales, Marketing & Revenue Growth

• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to episode 110 of the Sales Bluebird Podcast, which exists because at B2B startups it's hard to get go-to-market fit, grow revenue, and scale the sales team.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Sales Bluebird provides tips, tricks, experiences, examples, ideas, and inspirations from people who've been doing this for many years and at many different companies.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: We want your path to go to market fit and beyond to be less rocky so that you can grow sales faster.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am your host, Andrew Monahan, and today we're talking about discovery.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: But before we get into it, the podcast has grown to the point now where I'm accepting sponsors of episodes.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're interested in reaching hundreds, if not thousands, of sellers and sales leaders at cybersecurity companies, then please go to salesbluebird.com and look at the top menu.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's an option up there for sponsors.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: There's early adopter pricing right now for the first few people that want to take up the offer.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then after that, it's going to go up a little bit.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: But uh either way, I think it's pretty affordable and a great way to reach a really high-class, high-quality audience of sellers in cybersecurity.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the topic today is all about discovery.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And this came up actually a couple of times.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh recently, the the guys at Slingshot Edge did a post in LinkedIn about the need for continuous discovery.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Always be discovering, ABD, I think was what they were saying, which was dead on, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: The discovery is not a one-time event, and that was the point they were making.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: It actually also came up with in one of my clients recently.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: We were doing some training and some work around doing really good, value-oriented discovery.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the sellers, very experienced, did very fairly make the point that, you know, discovery doesn't always happen perfectly, as sometimes in training as described.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, ask these two or three great questions and suddenly the prospect's just going to open white up and tell us everything we know, right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just not the way it happens.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the seller that was kind of pushing back a little bit said, you know, this is all well and good, but you know, in reality, this is not how it plays out.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and I agree, right?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's not how it plays out.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Rarely do we sit down with someone and ask if you know three or four just killer questions, and suddenly everything we need to know about the opportunity, the problems they're facing, the impacts, the whole thing, and what the future looks like, that that really, if ever, comes out very clearly in this uh that early stage meeting.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So what do we do about it?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: What's what's the answer?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: And as the guys at Slingshot Edge saying, well, it's all about continuous discovery rather than treating it as a one-time event.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you know, this is needed more than ever in cybersecurity, where, you know, if we are having that first meeting, they they don't open up, right?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a need often for them, the prospect, to be a little bit cagey or a little bit uh keep keep their cards close to the chest.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know who we are, there's no trust.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when you get into discovery around cybersecurity, you're getting into some topics that they don't want to disclose.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've been breached, maybe there's things that are going less than perfect, maybe they'd have to admit that some of their protections they have in place just aren't very good.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something you just throw out there just because a vendor calls you up and says, let's me, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: So in cyber, it's it's super important.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but to do this properly, what we do need is a framework to work towards.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the framework that I work to work work on with my clients is one where there's there's four boxes, right?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: Top left is current situation, bottom left is the impacts of the problems that we uncovered in the current situation, top right is the ideal future, and then bottom right is the impact of that ideal future.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the outcomes that will come for the process when they get there?
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: But that is something that we have to use again and again and keep going back to it throughout the meetings and the calls that we have.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And a great trick I want to give you, a tip to give you today about how to use this effectively beyond just doing death by discovery every time you meet is to use the what we heard slide.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you imagine you're going into that first meeting and you've you've done, you've asked your your questions and you're sensing you're you're getting some pushback and you you move on.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: At that second meeting that you you come to, uh imagine that you're able to present to the group a slide.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that slide is is very simple.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: On the left, it's got two columns.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: On the left hand side, it's the prospect's current situation, and the right hand side it's what they want to get to or the ideal state they want to get to.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And imagine that you were able to do enough in that first meeting that you could at least put some bullets in each of those columns.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And at the start of the meeting, you can say to everyone, you know, I just want to make sure that we can level set and remind ourselves what we talked about last time.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I want to just show you my notes and let you uh have a look at them and see if I've missed anything or mischaracterized something that we talked about last time.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you put the slide up, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when you do that, you don't have to talk through every last bullet, but you can say, look, you know, my takeaways were this on the left hand side, and what I heard you say was this on the right hand side.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what happens when you do that.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: One is it reminds people what we talked about, because you know, if you've got three or four weeks between the first meeting and the second meeting, I bet you the people that you're meeting with have probably had at least 50 meetings.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them will be internal, but some of them will be external.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the chances of them remembering exactly what we talked about is very low.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So it's actually a great way just to take the stress off them of trying to remember and say, this is what we talked about.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So a really good reminder.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: The second thing it's gonna do is give uh the chance for seeking confirmation, right?
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because maybe you did mishear something.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe they had said something that we just completely missed.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: It gives a chance for us to put on the screen our interpretation of what we heard.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, with call intelligence tools these days, we can go back and we can use their words.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is important, actually, use their words.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: If they call a something in their terminology, don't translate that into your terminology.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: Use their words, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it gives you the chance to say, this is what we got.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens is they'll say, Oh, well, you didn't quite get that right.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh actually, I think what I meant to say was uh there's a bit missing over there where I should have told you as well was that, right?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: And and nine times out of ten, when you use that slide effectively, they'll lean in and they'll start collaborating on that slide with you, right?
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: So it will be that that shared vision about what we talked about and what we're shooting towards.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and where there are gaps, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Back to the idea that you know, continuous discovery, you could say, look, one of the things we just never reached or never talked about last time is what would be the impact if you really if we did this over the next six months?
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, who's gonna be the happiest?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna have the biggest impact internally?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Which line of business is gonna really see the difference here?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna be the hero?
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna be promoted?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Right, whatever your version of that impact in the future questions are, that's your chance to go back and keep going on the discovery.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Bits that you never got to last time, right?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's just a great way to re-orientate everyone around.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that happens, of course, is in second and third and fourth meetings is new people are pulled into these calls uh on the on the prospect side and sometimes on our side as well, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great way to level set, is to bring them up to speed.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what we've been talking about.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, John and Jane, welcome to the call, welcome to the project.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, here's what we've been talking about so far.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we've been discussing, this is what we're shooting towards, these are the challenges we're trying to solve.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, John, your guy, John and I have been collaborating on this, and you know, I really want your input, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: What what from your perspective as you look at this?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Are we missing something?
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: Something else you want to add here to give some context to the project, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Just an awesome way for them to be invited in early if they'd just been if they've just been brought into the project to collaborate and contribute to what we're all working on.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So it does that, it gives us that chance of getting everyone on the same page, of filling in the gaps and adjusting anything that we misheard or just completely missed on that early stage call.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So just continuous discovery is the reality of what we have to do.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't leave it to chance and don't try and sneak it in there, right?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Don't don't just kind of, you know, middle of the second call, just start doing a bit more uh discovery off the top of your head.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Use the structure of the what we heard slide to be able to guide the conversation to be really effective.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, I want to tell you about this week's sponsor, which is cybersalesjobs.com.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you're a hiring manager and struggle to find great cybersecurity sales talent, or are looking and are fed up having to check out a whole bunch of different set websites to see what's out there, check out cybersalesjobs.com.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: It has AEs, SEs, SDRs, channel, ops, enablement, and it's uh individual contributor right up to sales leader type roles, all from a whole bunch of different cybersecurity companies.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Hiring managers can post jobs for free, and job seekers can get alerts as jobs open up for their type of role in their area, also for free.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: So head over to cybersalesjobs.com.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: And with that, thanks for listening and look forward to having you hit play next time.