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Show Me you Know Me! Sales Lessons for Modern Times · Sales Pipeline Radio

• 0:15
  Matt: All right.
• 0:15
  Welcome everybody to another episode of Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 0:18
  I'm your host, Matt Heinz.
• 0:19
  So excited to have you here with us today.
• 0:22
  We're going to do this quick-- usually 15, 20 minutes in and out.
• 0:25
  But excited to have you here.
• 0:26
  Thank you for making this part of your day.
• 0:28
  Every episode of Sales Pipeline Radio, past, present, and future, always
• 0:31
  available at www.SalesPipelineRadio.com.
• 0:34
  Super excited we were able to make this happen.
• 0:36
  Sam McKenna.
• 0:37
  She is the founder and CEO of Sam Sales.
• 0:39
  Sam.
• 0:39
  Thanks for being here.
• 0:40
  Sam: Hi, thanks for having me.
• 0:42
  Really appreciate it.
• 0:43
  Matt: So for those that maybe don't know you and your story, talk a
• 0:46
  little bit about your background, how and when you started #samsales
• 0:48
  and what you guys focus on.
• 0:50
  Sam: Yeah, really quick.
• 0:51
  So I've been in enterprise sales basically my whole career.
• 0:54
  I was in corporate America for about 13, 14 years before taking
• 0:58
  the leap to start #samsales.
• 0:59
  I was an IC for seven years, a leader, and then an executive leader after that,
• 1:03
  and wrapped up my time at corporate at LinkedIn, which was the holy grail
• 1:07
  of places for me to work in the end.
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  I got to be a leader there representing LinkedIn Sales Navigator,
• 1:12
  which I still feel like I bleed #samsales orange out of one arm
• 1:15
  and LinkedIn blue out of the other.
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  I started #samsales in the fall of 2019, and we're an all women team of
• 1:22
  nearly 20 and have over 250 clients.
• 1:25
  What do we do?
• 1:25
  We focus on top of the funnel sales training everything to do
• 1:28
  with LinkedIn and social selling.
• 1:30
  And then we also build brands for executives on LinkedIn for LinkedIn
• 1:34
  themselves, we're approaching 500 execs for celebrities, for
• 1:37
  everybody in between all of those.
• 1:38
  So that's me and us, fastest delivery ever in a nutshell.
• 1:43
  Matt: That's pretty good.
• 1:44
  Yeah, I want to talk about the executive brand building on LinkedIn for a second.
• 1:47
  So I started my business in 2008.
• 1:49
  It was a terrible time in the market.
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  And my wife was also pregnant with her first child.
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  So who needs healthcare?
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  When you're having a baby, right?
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  It wasn't quite that bad.
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  She's a teacher.
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  And so like I was on her benefits for a long time.
• 2:00
  It worked out really well, but talk a little bit about that step.
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  Cause I talked to a lot of people, maybe you do too, who were like,
• 2:05
  I'd love to try to do my own thing, but they're scared to do it.
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  And I'm like, you will always be scared to do it.
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  What gave you the confidence and courage to give it a shot?
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  Sam: You will always be scared to do it.
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  In my career,
• 2:14
  broken 13 different sales records.
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  And when I was at LinkedIn, that was what I broke my 13th.
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  I was on a plane every single week.
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  And so I just thought, you know what?
• 2:22
  I feel like there is something special about my methodology.
• 2:25
  Whatever it is, I have no idea because it all seems really obvious to me.
• 2:28
  But I wonder if I can leave this all behind, right?
• 2:31
  And I can take the leap to go and start a business and work part time
• 2:35
  and make half the money I made in SaaS.
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  That wouldn't be a terrible life.
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  So I should have known myself better because I'm very type A
• 2:41
  and disciplined and that all went to hell in a handbag in a week.
• 2:44
  But I think it's just having confidence that what you do is
• 2:47
  something that the market needs and there's a differentiator there.
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  I would say two things, and maybe Matt, you agree or disagree, but I think
• 2:53
  one make sure you have some savings.
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  So no matter how ethically amazing a sales you think you are, it will take
• 2:59
  a shitload of time for you to actually close deals and do it meaningfully.
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  And you will run out of runway really quickly.
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  So make sure you're in a financially stable place.
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  Give yourself 18 months, 24 months of runway.
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  Maybe 12 months, but give yourself some time because that pressure
• 3:14
  will stack up really quickly.
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  I think the other thing is make sure you have a brand.
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  So take some time to invest in your brand, get out on LinkedIn
• 3:20
  and start to connect with people.
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  If you have a bunch of clients now, wherever you work in
• 3:24
  corporate America, make sure to connect with them on LinkedIn.
• 3:27
  So you're building that personal CRM for yourself, if you will.
• 3:30
  But I gave myself that shot and, I didn't even create a
• 3:33
  website for I think 12 months.
• 3:35
  So that was like, let's see how it goes.
• 3:36
  And work email was my personal email.
• 3:39
  I don't know, Matt, was it the same for you or were you like?
• 3:42
  Matt: Yeah.
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  People think I'm joking when I say, November 2008, I started with a
• 3:45
  laptop and a bus pass, but literally I started with a laptop and a bus pass.
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  Like I had a bus pass that was going to last for another six
• 3:51
  months from the job I quit.
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  I bought a new laptop.
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  That was my one expense is I needed a computer.
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  I've always only had work computers, so I need something.
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  We had a plan, like we basically said she's incredible and she believed in me,
• 4:03
  but she said we, it's not guaranteed.
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  So there was a date at which we said, if you're not profitable by then, but you
• 4:09
  really feel like you have pipeline and a runway, then we can tap into some savings.
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  But then there was a second date, that if we hit that date and it really wasn't
• 4:17
  happening... It's never over forever.
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  But it was like, okay, you got to go back and get a job for a while.
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  Thankfully, things picked up and it started out okay, but I don't know if
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  I'm busting a myth here, Sam, but there's a phrase that a fellow entrepreneur
• 4:29
  here in Seattle used with me recently.
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  So like doing this is sometimes like chewing glass, right?
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  And from the outside, people can look at this and say, Oh man, you
• 4:37
  guys look like you're doing great.
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  And to hear you, to see you online, Sam, to see the kind of traction
• 4:42
  you get on LinkedIn and to hear 20 people, all women, amazing.
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  It is not all amazing, is it?
• 4:48
  Sam: No.
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  And you are never done building.
• 4:50
  That's the thing.
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  Like every time you turn around and there's a new logo, you added a new quote,
• 4:54
  a new product that you can develop a slide deck that needs to be updated because
• 4:57
  the last time you did was 18 months ago.
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  It is like chewing rocks.
• 5:00
  You will also never work harder in your life, but it is for your own business.
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  And I think that you're building your way.
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  I will tell you too, for anyone that's Oh, 18 to 24 months of financial runway,
• 5:10
  and that's what you want me to save.
• 5:12
  Okay.
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  Just consider if you stay in corporate America another year, another 18
• 5:16
  months, so that you can save that, it's effectively giving you a runway
• 5:20
  to make sure that you don't have to go back to corporate America,
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  that you have more time to actually see if your idea is going to work.
• 5:26
  So take it easy, right?
• 5:27
  And then make sure you're really good to go when you're good to go.
• 5:30
  Matt: Yeah, I totally agree with that.
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  And also just don't overengineer things, when you can just do it.
• 5:36
  There's a there's that gap between knowing what you're doing and breaking some glass
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  and testing some things and pivoting, but also giving some things time.
• 5:43
  And it's always going to be harder than you think, right?
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  You're out on your own and you got to eventually you start making payroll.
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  So you got to keep selling.
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  And it's just, what's funny, like I've had a lot of people and I thought we
• 5:54
  were gonna talk about sales, but this is actually a little more interesting.
• 5:56
  So I thought we were going to I, I have a lot of people that say
• 6:00
  to go out and do this on your own.
• 6:01
  You have to be incredibly risk tolerant.
• 6:06
  And I don't know that's actually the case because I think that if you
• 6:10
  are doing your own thing, part of being successful is mitigating risk.
• 6:15
  And I think about this all the time.
• 6:16
  Like someone says what's the big benefit of having your own business?
• 6:18
  One of the first things that comes to mind is control, right?
• 6:20
  I'm a very anxious person and anxiety is a disease of control.
• 6:24
  And I realized I don't control when this deal is going to close
• 6:28
  or when this check's going to come in or whatever that is.
• 6:32
  But I control so much more as an owner than I would if I was
• 6:34
  a CMO somewhere, to be honest.
• 6:36
  Sam: Yeah.
• 6:37
  And I think no matter what, if you say in corporate America also you only have
• 6:40
  control over so many things, right?
• 6:42
  There's a really beautiful part about creating your own business.
• 6:45
  I say this just like the way you would manage your finances early in life.
• 6:48
  If you starve, so to speak, for the first few years Think about how you can sustain
• 6:53
  yourself for the next couple of decades.
• 6:55
  And I think the same thing goes here, like maybe after 18 or 24 months, you
• 6:59
  have enough savings, you have enough built up, et cetera, that yes, you
• 7:02
  don't know when the next check is going to come in and you don't know
• 7:04
  if they're going to pay on time.
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  And we have a client that's 18 months in a rear on one of their paychecks.
• 7:09
  It's a delightful situation.
• 7:11
  But things like that as long as you prepare and you're ready for
• 7:13
  those headwinds, you'll be fine.
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  I'm not a risky person.
• 7:16
  I like control.
• 7:17
  I like process.
• 7:18
  I like responsibility.
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  I like having my shit together.
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  That's the kind of person I am, but you do need to toss some
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  of that out in the early days.
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  And just go for it.
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  I also think, and I don't know if this is where this was your path, Matt, but I meet
• 7:30
  a lot of entrepreneurs who are like, okay, I built the ship and I need to sell it.
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  So how do I do it?
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  And I'm like, why did you build the ship?
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  And they're like, I thought it's what everybody needed.
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  And I'm like, did you vet this?
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  Did you ask anyone?
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  Did you sell something before it was built?
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  And then think, okay, Oh, shit.
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  Now I need to build the ship.
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  I'm at the P's and the T's.
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  That's what I would say, because I, there's so many people who
• 7:51
  build something and then they're like, I have to go sell that.
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  Where instead of you say, like, how can it be of help to you?
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  What do you need?
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  What can I build for you?
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  And then you build it for someone, build it for somebody else.
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  You build a consulting practice and you find that everyone needs
• 8:02
  the same help with the same thing.
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  So maybe you write a playbook, you start to sell a particular
• 8:06
  course that you have online.
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  You start to see what is rinse and repeat and you can scale.
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  Do that before you build the ship and then have to find a buyer for it.
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  Matt: All of that and know that playbook will change over the years.
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  Like what works will change, what's needed will change, what's perceived will change.
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  We've certainly seen that, over sort of 16 and a half years now.
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  We're still generally marketing strategy, consulting for complex sales situations
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  to build more predictable pipeline.
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  For 16 years it's been about orchestrating the go to market motions, right?
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  All the different outbound motions across sales, marketing, CS.
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  What we've learned over the last three or four years is the complexity of the
• 8:44
  buying journey, the complexity of actually doing that work is killing companies.
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  Gartner calls it collaboration drag.
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  And so now increasingly, we are project management experts, helping
• 8:55
  people just get stuff done internally.
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  And so to be able to know the customer well enough to hear what they're doing
• 9:01
  to say, okay, they may still need help over here, but no one is helping them
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  actually get the work done internally.
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  And for a large organization that feels that collaboration drag very strongly.
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  That's a big thing.
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  So for me as an example, just to what you said, listening to the
• 9:17
  customer, responding to what's needed.
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  I can go on off on a whole tangent.
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  I know we've only got maybe about six more minutes-- about people that
• 9:23
  build a company where their objective is an exit, as opposed to like your
• 9:26
  objective is to serve a market.
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  And if you do that well, the exit will be there.
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  Anyway All right.
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  I have two things I want to make sure we cover with you with the time we have left.
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  We've got Sam McKenna here on Sales Pipeline Radio today.
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  She's the CEO founder of #samsales.
• 9:41
  There's probably a very small minority of people that don't know The Show Me
• 9:44
  Method that you promote, but can you summarize that a little bit for folks?
• 9:48
  Sam: Yeah.
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  Show me, is really exactly as it sounds.
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  It's showing up to know who your buyer is, what their space is going
• 9:54
  through, what their company is going through and having some kind of
• 9:57
  expertise on their entire situation.
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  It's also getting to know your buyers at a personal level.
• 10:02
  So do they tell you that they have a dog, that they have kids, that they have a
• 10:05
  dream to buy a house in Maine one day?
• 10:07
  What is it that you know about them?
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  And I think if you just look at the most basic level, what can you do to employees?
• 10:13
  Show me you know me today.
• 10:14
  I want to listen back to any of the calls that you have this week so far.
• 10:18
  And if you started the call with, Where are you based and how's the weather there?
• 10:22
  Two things that we probably, A, we know where they're based because we
• 10:25
  can see them on their LinkedIn profile.
• 10:26
  Two, be better than the weather, you should have had some research done, right?
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  Unless you're British, and then don't yell at me.
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  But we should have done some research.
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  We should know some things about them already.
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  We should come prepared with something to build a report on.
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  So I think we really lack that.
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  And especially because there's so many meetings back to back.
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  We just think there must be a reason they're on the call.
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  Why should I bother to learn anything about them?
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  What a way to set yourself apart.
• 10:49
  It might seem like table stakes and it is, but it just doesn't happen.
• 10:53
  Matt: There's so much statements in sales and marketing that feel like
• 10:55
  table stakes that aren't right.
• 10:57
  And we've been talking about account based go to market for forever.
• 11:00
  And like salespeople sell us, Oh, we've been doing it for forever.
• 11:02
  We always manage the buying committee.
• 11:04
  Let's look at your Salesforce, shall we?
• 11:06
  Like how many opportunities have one contact associated with them?
• 11:09
  You are single threading your deals.
• 11:11
  Let's just be clear about what we are and aren't doing here.
• 11:14
  So I gotta be honest, to me, you can say, Oh, it's table stakes.
• 11:17
  If all you do is table stakes, you will outsell, outperform everybody.
• 11:22
  Sam: And then we were in the precarious position where we have everybody on
• 11:24
  LinkedIn who thinks that they're an influencer and tells you, there was
• 11:27
  just a post yesterday that said, stop multi threading your deals.
• 11:30
  It's killing you.
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  And I'm like, please just make this person go away.
• 11:33
  I just like, Oh my God.
• 11:37
  Need to judge who you're listening to as well.
• 11:39
  Is it your Matts of the world that really understand the ins and outs of this space?
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  Or is it the person was like an AE for nine months to three jobs.
• 11:47
  The now says he's a three times sales leader-- Oh my God.
• 11:50
  Matt: And when you talk about getting to know your prospect, even just
• 11:54
  taking a couple of minutes and having a proven checklist and process to find
• 11:57
  a couple of things, it doesn't mean that all of a sudden that cold call
• 12:00
  is going to turn into a million dollar deal today, but it's a process, right?
• 12:04
  And so I think between, Show me you know me and having a consistent
• 12:07
  presence on LinkedIn and engaging with people in an authentic way.
• 12:11
  These are the building blocks to predictable pipeline, whether you're
• 12:14
  an entrepreneur or whether you're in sales or any go to market motion.
• 12:18
  Sam: Completely.
• 12:18
  And it's all about the long game.
• 12:20
  Like I asked our AE about the other day, are you going to
• 12:22
  make a career out of this?
• 12:23
  Do you think you want to be in sales forever?
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  And she said, I ultimately want to own my own business.
• 12:27
  So you need to start to think about all of these building
• 12:30
  blocks for the long term, right?
• 12:31
  Write these sales lessons down, think about these things,
• 12:33
  really focus on how to prospect.
• 12:34
  Because even when you are a multi million dollar earning CEO,
• 12:38
  you're still going to prospect.
• 12:40
  You just will, right?
• 12:41
  Even if it's just a little here and there, learn these things.
• 12:43
  They'll never go away.
• 12:45
  Matt: So if people want to learn more about you, about #samsales if you were
• 12:49
  like, I really need to bone up on Show Me You Know Me, where can people go to
• 12:52
  learn more about you and what you guys do?
• 12:54
  Sam: Everything for free.
• 12:55
  You can hop on our YouTube channel.
• 12:57
  For still free, go to our website, www.samsalesconsulting.com.
• 13:00
  We have a newsletter.
• 13:01
  We have podcasts, we have webinars.
• 13:02
  We have women's group all free.
• 13:03
  If you wanna make a little investment, look on our website
• 13:06
  under the shorts section.
• 13:07
  We have a playbook or everything you can imagine from LinkedIn to
• 13:10
  Perfect Profile being an influencer.
• 13:12
  Show Me You Know Me to prospecting and everything in between.
• 13:15
  And we have a podcast.
• 13:16
  So check us out on Spotify.
• 13:18
  We prioritize guests that are overseeing at least 250 million in revenue.
• 13:23
  And we had an incredible lineup so far with the great grandson of William
• 13:27
  Howard Taft is our fourth guest.
• 13:29
  And that was just launched this week.
• 13:31
  And I think that's it.
• 13:33
  Matt: That's a lot.
• 13:34
  Sam, you're the best.
• 13:35
  Thank you so much for being here.
• 13:36
  I know you're super busy.
• 13:37
  We'll make sure we get links to a lot of that in the show notes.
• 13:39
  Thank you everyone for showing up, being here as we are already
• 13:42
  late February as we record this.
• 13:44
  It's incredible how fast the year's gone by, but we'll be here
• 13:46
  next week with another episode.
• 13:47
  Until then, my name is Matt Heinz.
• 13:49
  We'll see you next time on Sales Pipeline Radio.
• 13:51
  Take care.