Latest / The Prompt / Ep. 539 | Relevance over personalization: Prospecting that actually works

Transcript

Ep. 539 | Relevance over personalization: Prospecting that actually works · The Prompt

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This is on base your one stop shop for solving your most
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pressing B to B go to market challenges.
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Each week, host Chris Moody and Paul Gibson talk to sales and
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marketing leaders to get you in depth insights and creative
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strategies to set your revenue teams up for success.
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Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Home Base
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Podcast. I'm your host, Chris Moody, and
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today we are very excited to have Lydia Hutchison with us to
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talk about prospecting done right, relevance over
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personalization. Lydia, thanks for joining us
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today and welcome to the show. Yeah, thanks for having me.
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It's one of my favorite topics. I'm excited.
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Yeah, we're excited too. I was just talking with our CEO
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yesterday about personalization, So this is a very timely topic.
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Before we dive in, we love to start with giving you the
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opportunity to walk us through your journey.
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So what led us to what you're doing today?
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I was actually in art school of all things up in San Francisco,
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and I was getting to the point where I realized I was going to
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have to do something to continue paying for school.
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And a friend of mine was doing a temp agency at this, I guess you
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would call it a telemarketing agency, where they were calling
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on behalf of big logos like Oracle, HP, like following up on
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their campaigns. And so I said, OK, I'll do it to
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pay the bills. And I loved it.
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But this was, you know, dating myself back in the early 2000s.
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And so we were hand dialing on a desk phone, like 200 calls a
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day. We weren't even doing emails.
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We were just, you know, talking to people all day long and that
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thrill that I would get when somebody would show excitement
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and interest. And the reason that I was
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calling was just second to none. And so I thought what I kind of
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like this. I wonder if I can make a career
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out of this. And then I learned that there is
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actually something called the SDR or BDR role.
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And so after a couple of years at that agency, I then went to
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work as a BDR and then realized I'm never going to use my art
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experience. I'm going to stay in sales.
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And so I did the traditional path of BDR to account manager,
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to account executive, really got to do some awesome traveling.
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I might be jumping ahead a little bit, but as I was an
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account exec at IBMI, did not have a BDR. And that's when I
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realized how important that prospecting piece was to the
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entire sales cycle. And so after doing that and
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coaching my fellow A ES on how to do prospecting, I then
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realized, OK, maybe I want to lead top of funnel teams rather
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than actually traveling and closing deals.
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So here I am. I love that.
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I love that. And you talked about leading a
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little bit. We can pull on that thread.
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How do you think you best developed that expertise in
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sales execution and prospecting? Because I know that that's
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always one of the most challenging steps.
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When I worked at the telemarketing agency, we had
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very tight scripts that we were to follow.
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And you know, I struggled with them a little bit because one,
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it wasn't how I spoke to. I felt like I sounded like a
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commercial. It just wasn't fun.
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One day I was probably multitasking or not paying
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attention or doing something and somebody picked up the phone and
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I could not find that call guidance.
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So I just winged it and I in my head, it was like, what do I
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want out of this conversation? And it really started with
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questions around how are you doing this today?
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Like would this new alternative way of getting your job done be
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interesting? And it was the best conversation
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I ever had. And I thought, OK, I'm probably
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going to get in trouble because they definitely listen to all of
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our calls. But it was really eye opening
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for me in that I just had this organic conversation and didn't
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read a piece of paper. And it went amazing.
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Yeah, I, I love that. I I'm curious that plus other
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experiences or milestones, what are some of the most important
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events that you think shaped your approach to crafting
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effective sales strategy? I think once I became a leader,
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I then started getting all of the sales emails from everybody
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and I still do. And I on a daily basis will send
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things to my team like, hey, this was really cool, this got
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my attention, or please don't ever be this person.
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So actually being on the receiving end of a lot of this
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helps me understand what my prospects are dealing with on a
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daily basis so that I can be better than that.
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Yeah, that's great. And we talked about the
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difficulty of prospecting a little bit.
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But just to emphasize the point, if there are marketers listening
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that have not been deeply involved with sales, prospecting
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is the the very top of the funnel as you head on.
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Lots of no's, so constant rejection dealing with building
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up the nerve to pick up the phone and call in addition to
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all the other digital tactics. What is your framework for
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approaching prospecting effectively?
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Yeah. So to have a conversation that's
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going to progress to the next stage, you've got to reach the
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right person at the right time with the right problem.
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We don't have much control over those things.
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We can control who we reach out to, what we say, and how we say
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it. And so I think it's really
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important to start with a strong foundation of knowing who you're
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talking to, right? What's their job to be done?
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What are their success metrics? What types of things get in
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their way? What makes their job hard to get
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done with the solutions that already exist or by doing it
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themselves? Once you've got that groundwork
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laid out, you can then use that to build out your messaging.
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And so for me, it's OK. I want to understand the person
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and then I want to build out some talk tracks based on these
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different pain points that are then going to be specific to the
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industry that they're in, what level of leadership they're in,
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whether they are a technical person or a non-technical
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person. And so this huge chunk goes into
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the research and the preparation of different messaging tracks.
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And then I like to reach out with that message on three
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channels. So that's phone.
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I feel like we can have the quickest measure of success on a
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phone call, right? You can tell if your message is
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going to resonate or not. You can tell if you're talking
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to the right titles. You can get a quick feedback on
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whether they ask that you have is reasonable or not.
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Like if you're jumping right into, hey, can I give you a
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demo? And people are like, wait a
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minute, hold on. Then you can tweak your other
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channels accordingly. The second one is a LinkedIn.
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Again, this is kind of going to depend on who you're reaching
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out to. I did sell into marketing for a
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while and I can tell you that they do not respond to people on
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LinkedIn as much as say I'm a data engineer, but they did
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answer the phone. So you want to have the message
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nailed out for each channel. And then you just try everything
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until you figure out what works. And even you know, when you do
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find something that works, it's not going to work for everybody.
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So it's this constant cycle of just hitting every every
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channel, modifying your messaging as you go, and as soon
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as you find something that works, it will stop working.
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So then you've got to reiterate and do it again.
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Love that. Yeah, I love the triple touch
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too. I we always saw that that was a
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very important piece of sales development when I was at Topa.
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One thing we talked about early on was relevance and
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personalization, and I do think some folks may combine those two
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terms and think that they're the exact same thing.
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So how do you best differentiate between relevance and
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personalization and prospecting? For me, personalization is more
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non work related. That's how I interpret it and
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relevance is I know this is going to resonate with your
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day-to-day. I'll give you an example.
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I get a lot of messages that are attempts at personalization that
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are clearly just been AI. Someone sent me a message last
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week referencing a town in Southern California asking for
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recommendations about restaurants or something.
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And I'm like, I've never even heard of this town because I'm
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in Northern California and in case you didn't know it's one of
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the biggest states in the country.
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I have no idea and this is just annoying at this point.
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Or they'll say, oh, I saw you liked this post and it's like,
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do you know how many things I touch on LinkedIn every day?
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So things like that almost feel lazy to me.
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And that's when I started to realize that, like, for me to
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respond to a message, I want somebody to talk about the
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problems that they know I have on a daily basis.
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Hey, Lydia, your team is making 100 calls a day and they're only
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talking to two people. That's going to get me to say,
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well, yeah, what can we do about it?
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Right? Not hey, Lydia, we have a ISDRS.
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Can I show you how they work? Because what problem is it
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solving? So the relevance for me is about
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showing the person that you understand their role, their
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job, their goals and the challenges that exist around
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those, and that you've got a new idea that can help them be more
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successful rather than referencing their college
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mascot. I love that.
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I think we're going to get along just fine.
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Lydia. I have not outed the company but
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one of my favorite newsletters is emailing me on my
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professional e-mail. So with demand base but I have
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referred over 200 people to their newsletter with my
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personal e-mail address and in the outreach for them to try to
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sell me something. They think my name is Christine
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and I have received over 10 emails so far.
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And I, I, I'm not outing them. I'm not going to say their name.
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I'm just curious to see when they actually realize, hey, this
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is the same person. See, Moody is Chris Moody, not
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Christine. And it's, it is such a personal
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pet peeve. And now I think totally
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differently about that company that I adore their content.
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I love what they do, but you know that it, it irks me every
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single time. And you know, I think for many
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they are embracing AISDRS and they are using AI to write their
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outreach emails. And you know, I, I think we're a
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little more team human on that side of the equation.
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We can still give you all the signals and the information, but
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I don't really want to increase the spam and the same message
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going out to folks. So what are some of the key
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factors to make a sales message stand out?
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Because we know that lots of folks that are in our inbox are
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using tools to automatically do this and make it appear
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personalized. That's just it is that the
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biggest thing, and I think I took this away from Josh Braun a
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couple years ago, is that everybody is getting their job
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done without you one way or another.
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They are in their seat unemployed, which means they
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don't need you to get by. So bearing that in mind as
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you're doing your outreach is really, really important.
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If you tell somebody, for example, the, the person that
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reaches out to me pitching AISDRS.
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So are you saying you're going to get rid of my whole team?
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Like you've got to be careful and think about how you're
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positioning things like that. I'm going to tell somebody, hey,
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I'm going to help you automate this.
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But then guess what? You're going to be out of a job.
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Like those are the things that that don't translate well when
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you're automating messaging. So keeping in mind that
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everybody's already getting it done without you, do you then
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have to understand what are the challenges with the status quo?
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What's wrong with manually calculating commissions every
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month? What's wrong with, you know,
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somebody potentially writing a wrong formula in the spreadsheet
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that then effects 10 sales reps who are going to get like, those
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are the things that people don't think through when they're
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getting their job done on their own.
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And so I think it's our job to educate.
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I say enlighten, lead them down the thought path of here's what
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happens if nothing changes. And then hey, here's this cool
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idea of how you could do it differently.
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Is that something that's interesting?
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Instead of take a meeting, I'm going to make you do your job
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better. This is very different.
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Yeah, it's totally different. Yesterday, one of the guests, we
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were talking a lot about how AI is attacking efficiency and not
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necessarily growth. And for many of the folks we're
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talking to you, they care more about growth than saving a
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little bit of time like we have to hit our revenue goals, which
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is always an interesting thing when you step back and think
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about it. I'm curious, what is your
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favorite example of where focusing on relevance instead of
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personalization had a significant lift?
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I was running the STR team at a company that did analytics for
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marketing folks. So it was the level of analytics
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on like individual deals and cost of goods sold and things
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was far beyond any other existing solution.
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But again, when when you reach out to someone saying, oh,
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here's all this cool data, this is a new thing.
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It's kind of like, well, that's cool, but I don't need that
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because I don't have it and I don't It's a nice to have.
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So I ran an experiment where I was going on to each of these
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brands websites and pulling the link to whatever offer they had.
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You know, if you go to like Bath and Body Works, it's like spin
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the wheel to see what percent of discount you get.
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And I would screenshot that and include it in the e-mail and
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say, what's the performance on this specific ad?
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Because I knew that they couldn't figure that out on
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their own. And so that to me was relevant
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to their specific role and something on their website that
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is clearly their job versus talking about, hey, your
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background is really impressive. And that was very manual for me.
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I had to hand screenshot and paste and send each of those
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emails, but there was like a 40% response rate.
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So that's always the one that I keep in my head is like, it took
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me a little bit longer. I put some thought into it, but
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the outcome was well worth it. Yeah, I, I'm a big fan of that
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too. Even looking at our connections
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and who knows who I get messages every week from sellers asking
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how well you know this person that you're connected to and the
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message there is very different to then we know that as AVP of
13:35
marketing it's very challenging to get pipeline like.
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Yeah, the aspect of tone just is not.
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I'm not sure who started that, but stop it.
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Yeah. Well, what's your process for
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ensuring that messaging stays consistent and compelling across
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sales teams, especially as they scale?
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That's definitely something that I think has been made easier
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thanks to these sales engagement platforms.
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You know, we're able to actually track performance on specific
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sequences. We can AB test.
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AB test is something that I highly encourage because what
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better way to see like which subject line is resonating, what
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personas based on their sequence or responding more, things like
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that. I think sometimes the gap is at
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an enablement level. There can be a disconnect
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between sales and marketing. There can be a disconnect
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between leadership and actual sellers.
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You know, if you go ask most companies, if you ask any five
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people what the value prop is, they're all going to say
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something different. And so having that unified
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message at the top level that is constantly, you know, repeated
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and enforced across the entire team is super important.
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And then I think, like I said, keeping all of the outbound
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messaging in a place where everybody can see it and analyze
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it together is super important. I'm a big proponent of here's
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how I do messaging for my team. But if you guys want to try
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something new, let's experiment and if it works better, let's
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try it like, and I get together with marketing and write
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sequences when we're doing event follow up.
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And then I'll tweak it a little bit because marketing and sales
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think differently. But it's very much, I think a
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problem is a lot of times people who write messaging then want to
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work in a vacuum. And it's like, this isn't like
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the end all be all. Things are changing.
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People have different preferences.
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So I guess yes, shameless plug for SCPS that has really changed
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the way that we do things since when I started.
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Yeah, totally. I I think that's a great plug
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to. No shameless disclaimer needed.
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How are you approaching objection handling?
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I mean, with prospecting, to me that's the hardest part.
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When you get the know or when you get the challenge, how do
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you turn that into productive conversations?
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At the top of funnel like business development, sales
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development, they're not truly objections.
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They're pushed back their lack of interest in continuing the
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conversation. I think the first step is really
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understanding whether it's genuine or whether it's I just
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don't want to be on the phone with you right now.
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And so I feel like understanding tone and then also conveying
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tone back is super important. Like if I call somebody and I
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can hear kids screaming in the background, I'm not going to try
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and pitch them on a meeting. So that human element is super
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important. And then if somebody says, well,
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I'm walking into a meeting, it's like, OK, well, here's why I was
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reaching out. Is this relevant?
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Is this something that I can circle back with you on later?
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And if they say no, well, then I send them an e-mail too, and
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say, hey, I realize you might have been in the middle of
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something. Your brain was probably
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somewhere else. This is why I reached out.
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This is why it's important. Do you want to talk?
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Because the level of conversations that we're having,
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like people can't really object at that point.
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It's going to be, oh, we already have something in place.
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Well, part of our job is to poke holes in that and understand if
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there are any potential challenges.
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But again, a lot of times people just don't want to be on the
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phone with you. So utilize your other channels
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and don't be afraid to just ask like, hey, it sounds like you're
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really just not into taking this cold call right now.
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You know, are you truly happy with the way that you're doing
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things or can we maybe talk another time?
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I think the human element is super important and goes a long
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way. That's great.
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And sales development to me is one of the most interesting
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functions because there's always a bit debate around does it sit
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in sales, does it sit in marketing?
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And numbers wise, we usually saw about 60% sales, 40% marketing
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when I was an analyst. But it's all over the place.
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And if we are a team that's struggling with prospecting no
17:29
matter where we sit, what's the first piece of actionable advice
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you'd give to someone to try to make things better?
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I'm going to want to see where in the funnel the struggle is
17:39
happening. Is it connect rates?
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Then you might have a data problem.
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Is it that my conversation from conversation to meeting is
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extremely low? Then we need to get in and do
17:49
some call coaching. Is it that the messaging isn't
17:53
resonating with specific titles? Well then we need to go back and
17:55
do some work on our ICP. So this is where I, I really
17:59
geek out on the data and like to use all that stuff to my
18:02
advantage is like, you know, 1. Is it specific to any one
18:06
person? And if so, what are they doing
18:07
differently from everybody else? If it's a team wide problem,
18:10
then it's what stage of the funnel is this happening at?
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And then you can, if it's a data problem, well, then you fix the
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data problem. Maybe try some channel validated
18:18
data. Maybe you try a different
18:20
provider, maybe you do waterfall enrichment, whatever it is.
18:23
And then see how the conversations go.
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Once that part is fixed, based on the conversation, you'll hear
18:28
where people are disengaging on the phone or what kind of
18:30
responses you're getting to emails, and you can do
18:33
diagnostics that way for sure. Awesome.
18:35
All right, well, we're shifting to the whitening round.
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I know we're coming up on time. So my first question, how is AI
18:41
going to change prospecting? And then in parentheses, like I
18:44
almost want to say for the better, but I know that there's
18:47
a, there's a part that may change it for the worse.
18:49
So you can take it either direction.
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I'll tell you how it has already changed prospecting for the
18:54
worst, and I'll keep it brief. Is that look at your spam inbox,
18:58
right? I mean that I just did a post
19:00
about this today. We're like the bar is in the
19:02
basement, you guys. It's not hard to stand out from
19:04
all the horrendous noise that's there for the benefit.
19:07
I think there it's really going to be on helping you as the
19:11
seller do your job better not doing the job for you.
19:14
So can you help me research this account that I am working on?
19:19
My favorite use case is understanding that Icps and
19:22
personas that you're reaching out to, like, hey, I sell
19:24
software that helps people manage their data pipelines
19:27
better. I'm reaching out to head of data
19:30
analytics. Can you tell me why they care
19:33
about this, What challenges they face on a daily basis, what
19:36
things get in their way? And you'd be amazed at the level
19:40
of understanding you can have about a person and their job
19:42
based on asking the right questions.
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So that's where I see the the biggest benefit.
19:47
You can tell on LinkedIn Sales Navigator, they've done amazing
19:50
things with AI. They've got these summaries on
19:52
like how companies are making money, what types of changes are
19:54
happening at the leadership level, what departments are
19:58
hiring, is hiring growing the most?
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And those are all things that you can use to your advantage.
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And I was going to ask the biggest challenge in B2B sales,
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I feel like your answer may be prospecting or relevance, but
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you can tell me if it's either and we'll close it out real
20:12
quick. I think it's the psychology.
20:15
Something's broken. People forget that we're just
20:17
people talking to people. We don't have to read off of a
20:20
script. We don't have to sound like a
20:21
commercial. We don't have to talk about
20:24
speeds and feeds. We just have to understand how
20:26
people are getting the job done and if they're open to learning
20:29
a new way. It's pretty simple.
20:30
I think we overcomplicate things.
20:32
Love it. Awesome.
20:33
All right, very quick. These can be 5 seconds and then
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we're going to close out and keep you right on schedule.
20:38
I don't want to make you late. Good reads.
20:40
Any books, blogs, newsletters, or podcasts that you'd
20:43
recommend? Podcast, I love Jason Bay.
20:46
I mean, a lot of his style is very, I think works better when
20:49
you're selling into go to market teams.
20:51
But I learned a lot as far as his openers and things like
20:54
that. Definitely Jen Allen, Jen Allen
20:57
Nuth on LinkedIn, she's in a lot of the women's communities that
21:00
I'm in. She's got this whole psychology
21:02
piece of sales down and she posts amazing things.
21:06
So those are my 2. Favorites, sweet love it.
21:09
You nailed people too, so reeds and people you did it in one
21:12
fell swoop, which is great. All right, last question most
21:15
important. How can everyone get in touch
21:16
with you after this episode? On LinkedIn, I'm very active on
21:20
LinkedIn. Not e-mail.
21:21
Don't send me emails because you'll end up in my spam box, I
21:24
guarantee it. Yeah, happy to chat through
21:26
anything. Yeah, looking forward to it.
21:28
All right. Well, thanks so much, Lydia.
21:30
It's been a pleasure. Thanks for joining us for On
21:33
Base. If you enjoyed this episode,
21:35
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21:42
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21:48
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