Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 113 Top 3 Tactics from “Structured Prospecting : The Modern BDR’s Guide to Building a Predictable Sales Pipeline”
Transcript
- 0:04Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
- 0:07Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
- 0:12Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
- 0:22Speaker 2: Hello BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
- 0:27Speaker 2: Association podcast called What is Business Development? Now, folks, there's
- 0:34Speaker 2: a myth in business development, and that myth is that
- 0:37Speaker 2: sales success is about luck or natural talent. Well, today
- 0:43Speaker 2: we're going to bust that myth, and we're going to
- 0:45Speaker 2: talk to harm Linika. He just published his newest book
- 0:49Speaker 2: called Structured Prospecting. But before we talk about that wonderful book,
- 0:54Speaker 2: we're going to talk about another book real briefly here,
- 0:58Speaker 2: and that is the Business Development Body of Knowledge. Now,
- 1:03Speaker 2: this is the fundamental guide to success in business development.
- 1:07Speaker 2: It gives you the competency to speak the language of
- 1:11Speaker 2: business development. It gives you the competency to understand the tactics,
- 1:16Speaker 2: operations and strategy of business development. And when you're done
- 1:21Speaker 2: reading the book, you can take your Business Development Professional
- 1:24Speaker 2: certification and that's available at the Global Business Development Association
- 1:30Speaker 2: website at GBD Association dot org. All right, well, let's
- 1:36Speaker 2: jump into this book that we're going to talk about today.
- 1:39Speaker 2: And it's called Structured Prospecting, The Modern bdr's Guide to
- 1:44Speaker 2: Building a Predictable Sales Pipeline and master prospecting and inside Sales.
- 1:52Speaker 2: Now here's a little bit about the book. You know,
- 1:56Speaker 2: it gives you that structure that creates freedom. It enables
- 2:01Speaker 2: you to master your day and master your results, and
- 2:07Speaker 2: it walks you through processes that SDRs and BDRs can
- 2:12Speaker 2: use for those go to market motions. And today we're
- 2:18Speaker 2: going to talk about the book with the author, Harm Linika. Now, folks,
- 2:23Speaker 2: you may recognize Harm from one of our previous episodes
- 2:27Speaker 2: when he talked about his other book, The bdr's Guide
- 2:31Speaker 2: to Securing Sales Appointments on LinkedIn, and so we're really
- 2:36Speaker 2: honored to have Harm back on the show today. Here's
- 2:39Speaker 2: just a quick little overview about Harm. Now, he's passionate
- 2:44Speaker 2: about sales strategy and business development, and he's a sales
- 2:49Speaker 2: professional with fifteen plus years of experience across international market
- 2:55Speaker 2: specializing in structured prospecting, inside sales and building predictable pipeline systems.
- 3:02Speaker 2: He studied economics at the Martin Luther University, which shaped
- 3:07Speaker 2: his analytical, process driven approach to selling. So Harm Linica.
- 3:15Speaker 2: We can't wait to hear about this structured process that
- 3:18Speaker 2: you have. So let's welcome folks, Harm to the show.
- 3:23Speaker 3: Welcome back Harm, Hi, Tony. Hello, Yeah, hey.
- 3:27Speaker 2: Tell you what Harm. We're not going to go into
- 3:29Speaker 2: the typical origin story that I like to ask our
- 3:32Speaker 2: guest folks. If you want to learn more about Harm
- 3:34Speaker 2: and how he entered the business development professional, then go
- 3:38Speaker 2: to the previous episode. But Harm, let's just jump right
- 3:42Speaker 2: into the book. I know you wrote a great book.
- 3:45Speaker 3: Again.
- 3:45Speaker 2: The previous book was the bdr's Guide to Securing sales
- 3:49Speaker 2: appointments on LinkedIn. This new book really goes into a
- 3:53Speaker 2: lot of detail and it's a lot more comprehensive than
- 3:57Speaker 2: just LinkedIn. Right, tell us why you wrote the book?
- 4:01Speaker 3: Are you're right to Tony?
- 4:02Speaker 4: Is a really complete Yeah, I would say inside seals
- 4:05Speaker 4: book not only about linked In, about sales methodology, quite
- 4:10Speaker 4: strategic about this structure in the day. So yeah, like
- 4:15Speaker 4: you said, I'm fifteen years in sales and yeah, the
- 4:21Speaker 4: title structured Prospecting and the content is a lot about me.
- 4:25Speaker 4: So you know I have this yar German form, a
- 4:30Speaker 4: German background, the habit of a good structure and the
- 4:34Speaker 4: Seals function, and yeah, I did really put your walth
- 4:38Speaker 4: of knowledge in this book about the inside Seals function, calling, email,
- 4:45Speaker 4: linked in, sales methodologies, emotional yeah, resilience and intelligence. It's
- 4:54Speaker 4: like really, yeah, I would say a good guide, particular
- 4:59Speaker 4: when SDRs BDRs they start in the role and for
- 5:04Speaker 4: y'all inside seals people too, to show my best practice
- 5:10Speaker 4: of CIO.
- 5:11Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 5:11Speaker 2: Well, Harm I also know that you're obviously from Germany,
- 5:16Speaker 2: but you are a business developer with Google in Ireland
- 5:21Speaker 2: and just uh speaks volumes about your capabilities and of course, uh,
- 5:26Speaker 2: German engineering, everybody knows it's always high quality. So I'm
- 5:29Speaker 2: sure you put a lot great German engineering right into
- 5:32Speaker 2: your book. So let's just let's jump into your book again, folks.
- 5:36Speaker 2: We're talking about the book new book from harm Linka.
- 5:40Speaker 2: It's available on Amazon. It's called Structure Prospecting the Modern
- 5:43Speaker 2: Modern bdr's Guide. Okay, so let's jump into tactic number
- 5:48Speaker 2: one from your book, Harm.
- 5:51Speaker 3: Yeah, I would call it a structure is freedom.
- 5:55Speaker 4: Yeah, So in other words, to have a daily plan.
- 6:01Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, the seals up. Yeah, when you when you have.
- 6:09Speaker 4: Start off your day your plan, then you yeah, in
- 6:14Speaker 4: the office, really to execute on that.
- 6:17Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're not getting lost.
- 6:20Speaker 4: Yeah, with this structure, you have in front of you
- 6:25Speaker 4: a plan and when you're not thinking, yeah, there's not
- 6:33Speaker 4: the situation what shall I do? But you can ride.
- 6:37Speaker 4: Yeah Seals can be a roller coaster like you know,
- 6:40Speaker 4: but then structure gives you this glue where you can, Yeah,
- 6:47Speaker 4: when you have a bad day, you can stick to that.
- 6:51Speaker 4: Really so and for this you have on one side
- 6:56Speaker 4: like a daily plan, yeah, which you can at the
- 7:00Speaker 4: end of the day before or start of the day.
- 7:04Speaker 4: You have had in front of you. And there's a
- 7:07Speaker 4: great tool like an eisen Eisenhower matrix. You are from
- 7:11Speaker 4: the old American president Eisenhower.
- 7:15Speaker 3: He created this with four columns.
- 7:18Speaker 4: So I put different graphics in the book like Eisenhower matrix,
- 7:24Speaker 4: and this, your matrix, gives Inside Seals people a really
- 7:29Speaker 4: good structure and focus.
- 7:33Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 7:33Speaker 4: I think in the book maybe you know there is
- 7:37Speaker 4: uh in the Inside Seals function. You have tasks which
- 7:43Speaker 4: are important and you have to do it now like uh,
- 7:49Speaker 4: hot leads, follow ups, inbound inquiries and other yeah tasks.
- 7:56Speaker 3: So you can.
- 7:58Speaker 4: Have yeah, prospecting task which are always impartaned.
- 8:05Speaker 3: And os a task uh Yeah, which can wait.
- 8:11Speaker 4: So's yeah, as an urgent tasks which are not important
- 8:18Speaker 4: admin tasks. And is this matrix which I have in
- 8:23Speaker 4: the book, so good reminder of a structure.
- 8:30Speaker 2: Yeah, so the Eisenhower matrix. I really like what you're
- 8:34Speaker 2: saying here because you know, as business developers, we have
- 8:38Speaker 2: very busy schedules. We're constantly having conversations, we're taking action
- 8:41Speaker 2: items that we need to get done. And sometimes as
- 8:46Speaker 2: you're having those conversations with your prospects, your clients, your teammates,
- 8:51Speaker 2: your partners, you know, it's critical to jot those down
- 8:55Speaker 2: as you go record them.
- 8:58Speaker 3: I do it.
- 8:58Speaker 2: I have a running spreadshet. I'm not good about getting
- 9:02Speaker 2: everything done, but at least I jot them down to
- 9:04Speaker 2: know that I have to get them completed. And on
- 9:08Speaker 2: top of that, I do assign a priority level to
- 9:11Speaker 2: each one of them. And so that's what you're talking about,
- 9:13Speaker 2: right harm you those you're established.
- 9:16Speaker 3: Like an emotional seat belt.
- 9:18Speaker 4: When you have a structure for prospecting, and when you
- 9:22Speaker 4: have a really good time and your calendar focus focus
- 9:27Speaker 4: time so that you spent spent really enough time for
- 9:30Speaker 4: this critical tasks and prospecting linked in research, creating, cadences,
- 9:37Speaker 4: the sequence, email, automation, cadence work.
- 9:41Speaker 3: Yeah. To have this focus time in your calendar, I
- 9:46Speaker 3: would say.
- 9:48Speaker 2: Yeah, I love what you said. It's a seat belt.
- 9:52Speaker 2: It's a seat belt for your schedule and for success.
- 9:55Speaker 2: You know, it gives you that discipline. Let me ask
- 9:57Speaker 2: you this harm I always try to build in in
- 9:59Speaker 2: my skin edile personally, some white space, some free thinking time.
- 10:04Speaker 2: Do you have something in your calendar as well? I
- 10:06Speaker 2: think that's really important for business developers, just have a
- 10:09Speaker 2: little bit of time to decompress and just kind of
- 10:12Speaker 2: think strategically. Do you have that in your your Eisenhower
- 10:16Speaker 2: chart as well?
- 10:17Speaker 3: Right?
- 10:18Speaker 4: Yeah, weekly, I remind myself in this analytical way, how
- 10:24Speaker 4: my stock startu tree is working this week?
- 10:28Speaker 3: Yeah?
- 10:28Speaker 4: And Monday to Friday a stick more to or creative
- 10:32Speaker 4: singing because toesday to Thursday, I'm also busy outreach days.
- 10:38Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
- 10:39Speaker 3: I love it. I love it.
- 10:40Speaker 2: So folks, you know you have to decompress. It's not
- 10:43Speaker 2: just important for your success from a business development point.
- 10:48Speaker 2: I also think it's important from an emotional standpoint, and
- 10:52Speaker 2: that decompression time also helps enable you to build resilience
- 10:58Speaker 2: and come up with solutions sometimes that you never or
- 11:00Speaker 2: even think of while you're in the thick of the
- 11:02Speaker 2: Tuesday to Thursday high activity. At the tactical level, it's
- 11:06Speaker 2: always great to pull your nose up either Monday or
- 11:09Speaker 2: Friday or even on the weekend and just kind of
- 11:11Speaker 2: take that strategic or operational perspective. Okay, harm that was
- 11:15Speaker 2: tactic number one. Let's jump into tactic number two from
- 11:19Speaker 2: your book, please.
- 11:22Speaker 4: Yeah, it's an emotional intelligence and resilience. So we know
- 11:30Speaker 4: Seals can be like a roller coast star likes you around. Yeah,
- 11:36Speaker 4: and the Seals professional who are successful, other ones who
- 11:42Speaker 4: really know how to right right this roller CoA star. Yeah.
- 11:47Speaker 4: So we need to stick. We need to fill a
- 11:50Speaker 4: pipeline and Seals Cheb Blunt, I want.
- 11:56Speaker 3: Say something.
- 11:56Speaker 4: What Chet Blunt, one of the important Seals people, was saying,
- 12:01Speaker 4: the number one reason for failure in Seals is an
- 12:04Speaker 4: empty pipeline.
- 12:07Speaker 3: So your means.
- 12:09Speaker 4: Empty pipeline comes with emotional inconsistency. When you're consistent and
- 12:19Speaker 4: you're outreached and stay really.
- 12:25Speaker 3: I mean, you have sometimes good days, bad days.
- 12:29Speaker 4: You have these typical may I would say may days,
- 12:33Speaker 4: average days when you stay consistent and can play this
- 12:38Speaker 4: emotional game and sales.
- 12:43Speaker 3: What we are part of. So we are part of ghosting.
- 12:47Speaker 4: So good days are you have you get a meeting,
- 12:51Speaker 4: then you have a no show, you have a ghosting.
- 12:55Speaker 4: And when you can play emotional good with a that
- 13:00Speaker 4: comes with a good structure. When you have a good structure,
- 13:03Speaker 4: then you can play this roller coaster better. The structure
- 13:07Speaker 4: gives you a glue, a good glue to stick to
- 13:10Speaker 4: this structure and to have stability in your emotions. Yeah,
- 13:18Speaker 4: so the your structure gives you when when there's something
- 13:22Speaker 4: unpredictable coming, you're not falling in a chrtic way. You
- 13:29Speaker 4: stay consistent. So to have as well humor, like I
- 13:41Speaker 4: remember myself, I made a presentation, I made a pitch,
- 13:46Speaker 4: I was sending a proposal, and then the customer was
- 13:49Speaker 4: ghosting me. And to have a love, to have a
- 13:55Speaker 4: love really sometimes to have humor it helps you you
- 14:02Speaker 4: to write this emotional holocaust.
- 14:10Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the point that about having having good
- 14:14Speaker 2: humor harm you know, and that's important for the rest
- 14:17Speaker 2: of the team that you're collaborating with. Is kind of
- 14:20Speaker 2: taking it all with a grain of salt, as we say, right,
- 14:24Speaker 2: it's very easy for us to take it personally when
- 14:29Speaker 2: a prospect ghosts us, when they reject us, and so
- 14:36Speaker 2: it's important for us to know, Look, it's not about you,
- 14:39Speaker 2: it's it's it's whatever's going on in their life. And also, yeah,
- 14:48Speaker 2: they could be just busy and that's fine. And that
- 14:50Speaker 2: goes back to your original point, which is having the
- 14:52Speaker 2: emotional intelligence, the emotional intelligence not just to recognize what's
- 14:57Speaker 2: going on in your own mind about feeling those pains
- 15:01Speaker 2: of rejection in folks, the science proves that the brain
- 15:06Speaker 2: centers of your brain that feel physical pain are also
- 15:10Speaker 2: activated when you have emotional rejection in your life. Your
- 15:15Speaker 2: body feels that, your brain interprets that the same exact
- 15:20Speaker 2: way as if you experience physical pain. And there's even
- 15:23Speaker 2: data that shows when somebody takes a painkiller, right, you
- 15:26Speaker 2: take some sort of pain medicine, it actually dampens that
- 15:29Speaker 2: feeling of rejection that you feel. And so one is
- 15:34Speaker 2: that emotional intelligence harm that you're talking about, which is
- 15:37Speaker 2: to understand how you feel, but then also to have
- 15:40Speaker 2: that empathy, that emotional intelligence to say and that humor
- 15:44Speaker 2: to say, yeah, I guess the prospect was just having
- 15:46Speaker 2: a bad day. Right, They could you know, too bad
- 15:52Speaker 2: for them and just kind of going with the flow.
- 15:57Speaker 2: I really like that. Anything else you want to add
- 15:59Speaker 2: to active number two before we move on?
- 16:03Speaker 4: Yall, you've had a ride yours about playing the game.
- 16:07Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, when you get no shows ghosting you, Yeah,
- 16:14Speaker 4: you play the game of prospecting, you are in the game.
- 16:17Speaker 4: You're not bad. Yeah, you have these normal as a
- 16:21Speaker 4: normal activity. And inside Seals. Yeah you're playing the game.
- 16:26Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you're you're playing the game. So okay, harm
- 16:31Speaker 2: let's move on to tactic number three from your book.
- 16:36Speaker 4: It's about blending metadologies. So I'm really fine Tony about
- 16:46Speaker 4: I think you know the gunkadon ten X sales, metodology
- 16:51Speaker 4: and Zandler I learned as well in the US when
- 16:55Speaker 4: I started my career, so the Zandler metadology consultancy.
- 16:59Speaker 3: Selling.
- 17:01Speaker 4: It's always a good way to qualify an opportunity, and
- 17:06Speaker 4: I learned this in my first role in Seals in Washington.
- 17:12Speaker 3: Yah, blending of Seals metal dolo tes in.
- 17:19Speaker 4: Your work, yeah, modern blend, I would say.
- 17:25Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to mix and match, and you know,
- 17:27Speaker 2: what worked at your previous company may not work at
- 17:30Speaker 2: the company that you're in now. And it's great to
- 17:33Speaker 2: hear you say that you have a mix and match
- 17:35Speaker 2: folks that if you're listening to this, you've read the
- 17:38Speaker 2: Business Development Body of Knowledge. You know, we have a
- 17:41Speaker 2: whole chapter dedicated to sales and a significant number of
- 17:45Speaker 2: those popular tools and tactics. Harm You mentioned Grant Cardones,
- 17:50Speaker 2: ten X, There's the Sandler sales method, and there are
- 17:54Speaker 2: many other tactical methods that you can implement from a
- 17:57Speaker 2: sales standpoint, and those are found in the Business Development
- 18:01Speaker 2: Body of Knowledge. You can use those as a reference list.
- 18:04Speaker 2: But that's why it's so important, and this is why
- 18:06Speaker 2: I have so many business development practitioner authors like Harm
- 18:11Speaker 2: on the call, because you can hear their perspective that says, yeah,
- 18:16Speaker 2: all those tactics are great, but they don't all work
- 18:20Speaker 2: at one company. You have to kind of experiment a
- 18:23Speaker 2: little bit to mix and match the right kind of
- 18:26Speaker 2: tactics not only in that company, but also for different prospects, right, Harm,
- 18:31Speaker 2: I mean there are some i would say ICPS ideal
- 18:36Speaker 2: customer profiles that you probably model certain tactics.
- 18:39Speaker 3: Right.
- 18:39Speaker 2: You're probably taking a little bit from ten X, maybe
- 18:42Speaker 2: a little bit from Sandler and mixing those for a
- 18:44Speaker 2: certain ICP right, I mean, how are you doing the
- 18:50Speaker 2: mixing and matching? Is it dynamic? Are you doing it
- 18:52Speaker 2: across your teams or are you doing it as an individual?
- 18:58Speaker 4: So I myself, I stick who your can Cardon, I'll
- 19:03Speaker 4: mix uh it up with the Chandler so uh and
- 19:08Speaker 4: a Challenger is something for the additional insights. So let's start.
- 19:14Speaker 4: I have this grand Cardon methodology.
- 19:19Speaker 3: You know ten x.
- 19:20Speaker 4: It means more emails, more calls to remind myself in
- 19:25Speaker 4: my team of the quantity I need to fill the pipeline.
- 19:30Speaker 4: It reminds me really, yeah, I need this amount. Uh
- 19:37Speaker 4: Gan Cardon is very bold, motivating slogan.
- 19:41Speaker 3: Yeah uh in a transactional way.
- 19:46Speaker 4: And for customer prospects, I'll stick to the Chandler methodology.
- 19:52Speaker 4: So and then I have Challenger. It's a great way
- 19:58Speaker 4: with Challenger to teach to bring a new inside, like
- 20:01Speaker 4: you said, an industry inside and challenger. I need additional
- 20:07Speaker 4: to be successful. I think in the are the twenty
- 20:10Speaker 4: twenty six to come with a conversation to challenge like
- 20:17Speaker 4: it says a prospect, you're the Cardoon is again good
- 20:26Speaker 4: for filling the pipeline. So from the number side, I
- 20:31Speaker 4: make this amount of calls and emails to get to
- 20:35Speaker 4: a meeting. And when a meeting is I bring up
- 20:38Speaker 4: my Zandler methodology in a structured way. Sandler is a
- 20:46Speaker 4: structured qualification, so you're open. I build built first report.
- 20:53Speaker 4: For example, I tell I'm here calling from a Dublin.
- 20:56Speaker 4: I build report, and I qualify, ask intelligent questions. That's
- 21:05Speaker 4: about Zandler. I'm in a two way conversation. Then in
- 21:10Speaker 4: this meeting where I bunt qualify, still with a Chandler,
- 21:18Speaker 4: I can depart. I'm on a two level conversation. So
- 21:22Speaker 4: I agree in an upfront contract in Azandler style, you're
- 21:28Speaker 4: to have fifteen to twenty minute conversation and if if
- 21:34Speaker 4: the IT solution doesn't make sense, then I can we
- 21:38Speaker 4: can still break break apart.
- 21:42Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Army, you know, and I you know,
- 21:45Speaker 2: I know you're a fitness enthusiast like I am. I
- 21:47Speaker 2: don't know if you're I don't know if you're in
- 21:49Speaker 2: the mixed martial arts. But what you just describe, folks,
- 21:52Speaker 2: is the mixed martial arts of business development. Harm I
- 21:57Speaker 2: could I could talk to you for hours. It's always fascinating.
- 21:59Speaker 2: Your have wonderful systems, and you also have great methodologies
- 22:04Speaker 2: that are that you've used personally with some big name
- 22:08Speaker 2: companies to success. And so it's always great to have
- 22:12Speaker 2: practitioners like you come onto the podcast with your books.
- 22:17Speaker 2: Let me just summarize the top three tactics from your book.
- 22:20Speaker 2: Correct me if I'm wrong, But tactic number one as
- 22:23Speaker 2: you have to stick to your schedule, build the schedule,
- 22:25Speaker 2: stick to your schedule, build in the activity days, those
- 22:29Speaker 2: tactical days. Build in the white space days Monday, Friday,
- 22:32Speaker 2: maybe even on the weekends. Tactic number two has have
- 22:35Speaker 2: the emotional intelligence to understand your prospects frame of mind,
- 22:40Speaker 2: but also your own personal frame of mind. Don't take
- 22:44Speaker 2: it personally if you're feeling some sort of rejection, have
- 22:46Speaker 2: some good humor, some levity to pick your nose up,
- 22:50Speaker 2: pick your head up, and press on. And then finally,
- 22:53Speaker 2: tactic number three is the mixed martial arts. Have those
- 22:57Speaker 2: different tactics at your disposal that you can mix and match.
- 23:00Speaker 2: There's no silver bullet that's going to give you one
- 23:05Speaker 2: answer for every prospect, for every company that you're with.
- 23:08Speaker 2: It just takes a mix in matching that you can
- 23:11Speaker 2: use to great success. And you know, Harm, I really
- 23:15Speaker 2: like your point emphasizing having systems. Folks, if you want
- 23:20Speaker 2: to get access to Harm's system, this German engineered system
- 23:26Speaker 2: of Structured Prospecting. It's available on Amazon and it's the
- 23:31Speaker 2: Modern bdr's Guide to building a predictable sales pipeline and
- 23:36Speaker 2: mastering prospecting and inside sales. And hey, while you're on Amazon,
- 23:40Speaker 2: go ahead and grab a copy of Harm's other book,
- 23:43Speaker 2: The bdr's Guide to Securing Sales Appointments on LinkedIn. Harm, Uh,
- 23:48Speaker 2: it's always a pleasure to have you on the call.
- 23:51Speaker 2: How can folks follow you connect with you?
- 23:54Speaker 3: Thank you?
- 23:54Speaker 4: Ails a pleasure you on link it in and or
- 23:58Speaker 4: to send me an email on my private email hamlinik
- 24:02Speaker 4: at Jahu dot dee of Facebook, Instagram. Yeah, I'm happy
- 24:07Speaker 4: to connect and yeah as well happy of course about
- 24:12Speaker 4: feedback from my book.
- 24:14Speaker 2: Yeah, well, feedback for me is love it and can't
- 24:17Speaker 2: wait to have you on the show again soon. Harm, Again,
- 24:21Speaker 2: thank you for everything you do for the business development profession.
- 24:25Speaker 3: Thank you, Tonia.
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