Latest / What is Business Development? / Episode 145: "The Hidden Buyer Journey" with Scott Gillum

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Episode 145: "The Hidden Buyer Journey" with Scott Gillum · What is Business Development?

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Development Podcast, brought to you by
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: the Global Business Development Association, delivering the strategies and tactics
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: to boost your career and corporate growth.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Hello BD pros, and welcome to the Global Business Development
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: Association podcast called What is Business Development? Now? Folks, buyers,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: they're not rational, and let's face it, have they ever
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: really been rational? Well, research for decades confirms emotions, motivations, habits,
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: and personality drive purchase decisions more than any future ROI
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: nurture sequence ever will. And today we're going to talk
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: through that with Scott Gilliam and his book that shines
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  Speaker 2: a light on exactly what is missing. But before we
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: get to Scott's book, we're going to jump to this book.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: I always talk about it in every podcast. It's the
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  Speaker 2: Business Development Body of Knowledge, and this is the comprehensive
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: guide to our professional understanding of what business development is,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: the strategy, the operations, the tactics. When you read through
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: that book, then you're able to go to our website
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: at Gbdassociation dot org to then register to take your
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: Business Development Professional certification. Now let's jump to Scott's book,
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  Speaker 2: and the book is called The Hidden Buyer Journey and
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  Speaker 2: it's how personality, culture and hidden stakeholders decide your deals now.
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  Speaker 2: Scott's a seasoned marketing executive with over twenty five years
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  Speaker 2: of experience in advertising and management consulting and currently he's
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  Speaker 2: leading Carbon Design LLC as the founder and CEO. And
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  Speaker 2: the book, The Hidden Buyer Journey is grounded in seven
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  Speaker 2: years of original research on ten thousand buyers conducted across
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  Speaker 2: fifteen industries including life sciences, cybersecurity, aviation, construction, government contracting,
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  Speaker 2: and financial services. So let's give a warm welcome to
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  Speaker 2: Scott Gillem Scott. Welcome to the show.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you, Tony. I really appreciate you having me on.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we appreciate you joining us today, Scott, and we
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  Speaker 2: always love authors that join us with lots of data
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: and we really like ten thousand data points. So this
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  Speaker 2: is going to be fun to go through. But first, Scott,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: tell us, how did you get started in the business
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  Speaker 2: development profession and why did you write the book?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so.
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  Speaker 4: I got started in business development because I actually did
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  Speaker 4: internships on what I thought I wanted to do and
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  Speaker 4: realized I didn't want to do that. So this is
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: a shout out that any parents make sure your kids
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  Speaker 4: do internships. I thought I wanted to be an attorney.
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  Speaker 4: I worked until law offices and then I said, oh
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  Speaker 4: my god, this.
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  Speaker 3: Is not me. And so I graduated, Like the how
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  Speaker 3: am I going to do?
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  Speaker 4: So I started out as a sales rep for Pitney
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  Speaker 4: Bows and I carried a bag. Was in sales for
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  Speaker 4: ten years before I crossed over into sales consulting and
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  Speaker 4: then into marketing. But and it's funny this book, when
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  Speaker 4: I get when you start writing a book, you know
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  Speaker 4: certain things about it, but there's other things you discover
• 3:34
  Speaker 4: along the way. And so I knew at the beginning
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  Speaker 4: of the book what it was going to be and
• 3:40
  Speaker 4: what story I wanted to.
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  Speaker 3: Tell, but I didn't know how it was going to end.
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  Speaker 4: When it ended, this turned out to be like a
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  Speaker 4: love story for field sale, for human human selling.
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  Speaker 3: I wrote the book because.
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  Speaker 4: We are in an environment where things are changing rapidly.
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  Speaker 4: We have these technologies that are changing the way we
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  Speaker 4: do sales and marketing. And in the seven years that
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  Speaker 4: we've been using AI tools to understand personality types, we've
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  Speaker 4: learned a lot of things about this part of the
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  Speaker 4: softer side of selling that we don't fully understand we've
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  Speaker 4: been able to use this tool to bribe new insights
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  Speaker 4: in how to be better at human to human selling.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Well, we love the human to human selling and it's
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  Speaker 2: great to have a lot of research that you bring
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  Speaker 2: to the table with your book that really starts to quantify,
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  Speaker 2: analyze in scientific terms what drives that human to human
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  Speaker 2: genes sequala that people in business development of Austin said,
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  Speaker 2: it's a soft science, you know, it's a touchy feely
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  Speaker 2: human to human engagement in business development. But with a
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  Speaker 2: lot of news science that is coming to the table,
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  Speaker 2: it's really starting to become an exciting scientific profession and
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  Speaker 2: we talk a lot about it at Science in the
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Business Development Body of Knowledge, a lot of the neuroscience
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  Speaker 2: that goes into it. So I can't wait to jump
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  Speaker 2: into your book, Scott, and let's talk about key takeaway
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  Speaker 2: or tactic number one that you would like to share
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  Speaker 2: with everybody from your book.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think you hit part of this is this
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  Speaker 4: is a book about why. If you're ever wondering like
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  Speaker 4: why didn't we win this deal or why didn't I
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  Speaker 4: was able to get the script to advance and they
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  Speaker 4: just kind of stuck. This is a book that answers
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  Speaker 4: a lot of the why because it answers human behaviors.
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  Speaker 4: Why do people behave in certain ways? So the reason
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  Speaker 4: why we study personality is because it explains motivations, behaviors
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  Speaker 4: and preferences and all those are key for us. And
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  Speaker 4: so the first thing I would say in terms of
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  Speaker 4: recommendation is go get an AI personality profiling tool. They're
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  Speaker 4: not that expensive, XIQ, humanitic AI, Crystal knows, We've used
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  Speaker 4: them all, all very good. And the reason for that
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  Speaker 4: is the first thing you do is you profile yourself,
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  Speaker 4: so getting to understand who you are as a person
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  Speaker 4: so that you're able then to adjust your style selling.
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  Speaker 4: So that's like the very first lesson understand who you
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  Speaker 4: are and how you sell, because that will then begin
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  Speaker 4: how you have to adjust your styles to different personality types.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know, and so often that people start
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  Speaker 2: in business development. Heck, people have been in business development
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  Speaker 2: for a long time and they're expected to follow this
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  Speaker 2: kind of a persona of business developers. And what we've
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  Speaker 2: heard from a number of book authors is, hey, just
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  Speaker 2: be yourself, which sounds great, but oftentimes we ask ourselves,
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  Speaker 2: who am I and what is my real personality style.
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  Speaker 2: Can you mention again some of those tools that folks
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  Speaker 2: that are listening to this show can do a self assessment,
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  Speaker 2: maybe a couple of different self assessments.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah you can. Humantic AI is a provider, x
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  Speaker 4: i Q, Crystal Nose. You can even do it with
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  Speaker 4: your AI tools, So you can have you can take
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  Speaker 4: your emails and you can dump it into cloud or chat,
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  Speaker 4: GPT and have.
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  Speaker 3: It evaluate your personality style.
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  Speaker 4: This is contextual profiling, so you can throw emails in
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  Speaker 4: and ask it to give you a personality profile.
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  Speaker 3: That's great.
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  Speaker 2: That's great, and you know that's a very low cost,
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  Speaker 2: if any cost at all to do that. You could
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  Speaker 2: probably even do it just if you've been using the
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  Speaker 2: tool for a long period of time and you've been
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  Speaker 2: communicating with a particular system, whether it's Chat, GPT or
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  Speaker 2: claude as you mentioned next AI, can you can you
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  Speaker 2: also just have it do a personality profile on that
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  Speaker 2: not even enter in the emails.
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  Speaker 4: Well, yeah, there's some thing, so I actually explain the
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  Speaker 4: personality profile that we used in what I'm recommending is
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  Speaker 4: called disc So this is dumb, influencing, steady and conscientious.
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  Speaker 4: It's been around for one hundred years. It's like Myers Briggs,
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  Speaker 4: even in Myers Rage you could use So you can
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  Speaker 4: go online and order one of the tests as well
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  Speaker 4: and do it there. If you are using one of
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  Speaker 4: those tools, they integrate with your browser and they can
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  Speaker 4: read your email.
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  Speaker 3: We're at Google Shop, so we set up to Google Meets.
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  Speaker 4: I can see the personalities of people who are attending
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  Speaker 4: the web webinar or the zoom call or whatever it is.
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  Speaker 4: So yeah, it's pretty easy to tap into it.
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  Speaker 2: Wait a second, you can actually get the person personality
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  Speaker 2: profile of the other guests on your Google Meets. Yes,
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  Speaker 2: that is amazing. I didn't know that there was a
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  Speaker 2: feature like that. Is that something that you have to
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  Speaker 2: pay extra for or access to that?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a Chrome extension.
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  Speaker 4: It's a Chrome extent, and if you're using it, Crystal
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  Speaker 4: knows for example Chrome Extension, and then when you're using
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  Speaker 4: any kind of Google tools for Chrome, you it'll be integrated.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Wow. And will it give you your own profile as well?
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  Speaker 2: I guess it's listening to the transcripts or the conversations
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  Speaker 2: and learn.
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  Speaker 3: Sure it won't.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, it won't unless you're taken the actual test on
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  Speaker 4: the on the on the app. So if you do that,
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  Speaker 4: it knows who you are, yeah, but it will tell you.
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  Speaker 4: It'll coach you on how to change your conversation, how
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  Speaker 4: to respond humantic AI, integrace with your email. It'll help
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  Speaker 4: you write emails in the language of the audience that
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  Speaker 4: you're addressing.
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  Speaker 2: Wow, this is this is great, such powerful tools that
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  Speaker 2: folks can use. All right, Well, you came out of
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  Speaker 2: the gate swinging on tactic number one. I love that one.
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  Speaker 2: Nobody has mentioned that in the one hundred and forty
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  Speaker 2: plus episodes that we've presented so far. This is really
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  Speaker 2: something exciting. So folks, if you're listening out there, step
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  Speaker 2: number one from Scott's book is and again we're talking
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: about Scott's book called The Hidden a Buyer Journey and
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  Speaker 2: it's available on Amazon. And so the key point here
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  Speaker 2: is do a self assessment, get an understanding of who
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  Speaker 2: you are as a person, what your personality traits are,
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  Speaker 2: maybe even some of your communication styles, and really understand
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  Speaker 2: who you as a part are as a person. And
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  Speaker 2: even if you've been an industry veteran for a long time,
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  Speaker 2: we evolve. We all start in a certain personality profile
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  Speaker 2: and then we're influenced by our environments and we evolve
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  Speaker 2: over time. Okay, great, Scott, I love tactic number one.
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  Speaker 2: Let's go right into tactic number two.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 4: So when you have that right in chapter ten in
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  Speaker 4: the book explains the tools, how they work, how accurate
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  Speaker 4: they are, so you'll you can get more information on them.
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  Speaker 4: The next thing is then you can train you can
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  Speaker 4: build custom GTPs or GPTs to write no language of
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  Speaker 4: those those different profiles, and so you can write an
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  Speaker 4: email and then you can drop it into whatever AI
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  Speaker 4: content generating tool that you're used Claude, or you can
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  Speaker 4: train them on that and they'll take your email and
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  Speaker 4: then they'll adopt it and write it in the preferred
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  Speaker 4: style and language of those personality types. So if you're
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  Speaker 4: a dominant, which by the way, most business development people
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  Speaker 4: are dominant, their personalities are dominant. Dominance, are very driven,
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  Speaker 4: their goal oriented, their career oriented. Fifty three percent of
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  Speaker 4: the fortune five hundred CEOs are dominant, so it's very
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  Speaker 4: common to find that. But if you're addressing a person
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  Speaker 4: who's a steady they're very different pace. You're very fast,
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  Speaker 4: you're very driven, they're slower, they're more considerate. Right, so
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  Speaker 4: you start to adapt the language that's more aligned to them.
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  Speaker 3: So they want to feel they love being liked, so this.
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  Speaker 4: Language gives them comfort and confidence and the feeling that
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  Speaker 4: they can trust you. That all gets conveyed by using
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  Speaker 4: the communication style that is preferred by those personalities.
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  Speaker 2: Now, I really like how you can assess your own
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  Speaker 2: profile and you can translate that into the way that
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  Speaker 2: you communicate in a style that's consistent with your personality,
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: because I would think that some people may be right
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: differently than the way they actually speak, or they don't
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  Speaker 2: really reflect their own personality, and that may come across
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  Speaker 2: as inauthentic. When you've had a discussion with somebody on
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: a virtual call and they get your email and they
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: think that doesn't sound like the guy I talk to.
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  Speaker 2: So I think that's really helpful. But what you're also
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  Speaker 2: saying is you can from that virtual meeting, you can
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  Speaker 2: understand what that personality profile is for that individual. So
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  Speaker 2: those follow up emails that you send discussing what was
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: transacted during the virtual meeting can be in the voice
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  Speaker 2: of that individual, especially when you're talking about next best actions.
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  Speaker 2: You know, you don't want to come across as pushy
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  Speaker 2: you don't want you want to, You really want to
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  Speaker 2: accommodate their personality style, is what I hear you saying.
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  Speaker 2: But let me ask you this, Scott, because you've got
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  Speaker 2: me thinking, here, is there a way to get the
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: personality profile for an individual before you have that virtual meeting?
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  Speaker 3: One hundred percent? Yeah. So the tools I describe.
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  Speaker 4: The way that this works is that you will put
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: in the person's name and it will come back. It's
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  Speaker 4: easiest to go to the LinkedIn page of the person
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  Speaker 4: you're going to speak with.
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  Speaker 3: The tools, because you're using.
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  Speaker 4: Your browser, will pop up and we'll say if you
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  Speaker 4: want to run a profile, you run a profile right
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  Speaker 4: beside their LinkedIn profile, and it will tell you do don't.
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  Speaker 4: Here's the style, here's what they want. Here are the
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: things to say, here are the things not to say.
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  Speaker 4: It happens all right beside the LinkedIn profile, and so
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: you're prepared and then you can adjust your style within
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  Speaker 4: Crystal knows. It rates about seven or eight attributes based
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: on the personality.
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  Speaker 3: Risk is being one of them? Right? Are they risk
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  Speaker 3: averse or they risk tolerant.
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  Speaker 4: It'll plot you and it'll plot the people that you're
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  Speaker 4: talking to along these access up and down these attributes,
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  Speaker 4: so you can figure out where you can adjust your
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  Speaker 4: style so you don't talk about you know, you focus
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: on reducing the amount of risk involved in making that decision.
• 14:39
  Speaker 4: So you focus on that because you know they're on
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  Speaker 4: the right side, they're risk adverse, and so it gives
• 14:44
  Speaker 4: wonderful coaching, you know, for those first conversations and then
• 14:48
  Speaker 4: continue conversations.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is great because especially those engagements where it's
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: high touch. And what I mean by that is, you know,
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  Speaker 2: not every business developers out there making one hundred cold
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: calls a day and sending one hundred emails a day.
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: That's not your business. Your business may be what we
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: call high touch or high engagement type relationships where maybe
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: you have three hundred. In my profession, I have about
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: three hundred. That's it, you know, and it's very concentrated
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: in a specific vertical. And these are the type of
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: individuals that demand a very personalized approach, and so this
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: can be really powerful for folks that are business developers.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Maybe even not full time business developers. But you joked
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: about being an intern in the legal world, but a
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: lot of lawyers are expected to do their own business
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: development along with folks that are in agencies, whether it's
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: accounting or whatnot, and you're going to have these very
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: high quality engagements, and this can be a very powerful
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: tool where you can go in fully prepared understanding the
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: personality style for that individual. I mean, talk about the
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: ultimate personalization. You are personalizing based on their personality. I'm
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: curious to know if they have some plugins that can
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: automatically when you're doing an enrichment of say trying to
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: get somebody's mobile number or their email address. Is there
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: some automatic connection or yeah, okay, probably sometime in the future,
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: we may have something available where you know, you cannot
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: only get the mobile number, the email address, but maybe
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: even their personality profiles so you can really make those
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: highly personalized engagements. Okay, wow, Scott, this is so much fun.
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: I can't wait to hear what tactic number three is.
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  Speaker 4: Okay, so let me just go back up on these
• 16:48
  Speaker 4: other two taxis with a caveat. You have to be
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: careful with the way that you're using these tools. These
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: are tools that could use them the wrong way could
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: make somebody comfortable, right, So you be very smart.
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  Speaker 3: With the way that they're using these tools.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: And in the book, I give you examples of real
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: emails from reps on how people weren't changing their style,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: and you can see the way that person was driving
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: this deal with a personality type wasn't a driver, right,
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: and you could see where it was going to go wrong.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: And so there's examples of that.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: There's also examples of how I show copy and how
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: you're writing and how it changes for the personality. So
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: you can see the same paragraph written differently, so you
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: can recognize a little nuance of language of the personality.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: So I just you know, this is a bazookah because.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: You're bringing to a knife fight, right, So just use it,
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: but also understand that you have to do this in
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: a way that doesn't make someone uncomfortable on the other sign,
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: So the next tip I would say is to understand
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: how to be to change your style. There's a whole
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: chapter about the sales chameleon, and I give an example
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: of this person Ben, who's selling across three different companies.
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: It's private equity owned company, and he's selling three different
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: product lines for three different companies, and we interview customers
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: and he's three different things. And when he's doing this,
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: he's selling, he's he's engaging with engineers and he's talking
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: about specs on a product. And then another company's working
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: with procurement to be able to consolidate invoicing, which we
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: don't know how he did, but he did. And then
• 18:34
  Speaker 4: another company that has a twenty four hour quick ship model.
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: He is responsible, He answers the phone. He's really good
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: at understanding where his value is within those organizations, and
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: that's what they perceived. So when they all named him
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: by name, Ben, but when they described him, it was
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: all different in their scenarios. And so being able to
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: understand where you convey value in those relationships, how you
• 19:01
  Speaker 4: provide value, and being able to be flexible and changing
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: and really being able to be different things to different
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: people and different at different times when they need that,
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: I think there's an enough flexibility. We're trained, like you
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: said earlier, we're trained a certain way, we're scripted a
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: certain way. We're told to, you know, deliver our sales
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: presentations a certain way, and that's fine, that's your grounding.
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: But on top of that, you then build your delivery
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: style and it's got to be different.
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it has to be different. It has to be
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: personalized for each persona within an account as well, not
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: to mention just different companies and different accounts and the
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: decision makers. And we talk a lot about personalization and
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: the business development body of knowledge, and this is one
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: way that you can help personalize the style of your communication,
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: not just the words that you're using, but also the style.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: And I'm excited about the prospect of having tools like
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: this that make us better business developments professionals, and they
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: make us better humans, they make us more empathetic, they
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: help coach. I mean, i could see in the future
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: where I could be a business developer in a conversation
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: and I'm wearing my glasses that probably have a screen
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: or something that's telling me, Hey, the personality profile is
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: this of the person you're talking to, you know, lighten
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: up a little bit, you know, relax you know, or
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: this person's you know, very driven and very they want
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: to get to the point, so speed it up. That's
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: this is the personality sign. And you can kind of
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: get that real time coaching. Even hopefully we'll get to
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: that point where we just become the such highly fine
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: tuned and high performing business developers. And I'm so excited
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: about this because it's ultimately enhancing humanity. It's not taking
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: away from it. And so many people are afraid of
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: our artificial intelligence taking jobs. There's no doubt we already
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: have data that shows it is diminishing some roles, and
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: we've seen this in every technological cycle throughout the history
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: of humanity. But at the end of the day, roles
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: like ours as business developers, which is fundamentally human people
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: want to do deals with other people and making us
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: better people. I don't see a downside in that. And
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: I love your caveat that. Folks listening to this, you
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: always have to make sure that you're very careful in personalization.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: We talk about it, and we show the data in
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the Business Development Body of Knowledge that if you over personalize,
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: if you over personalize, then you actually reduce your level
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: of success. It's counterintuitive, but there's a whole section in
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: there supported by scientific data. And Scott, I really appreciate
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: you expressing that one caveat. And of course, folks, always
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: work with your legal teams, internally, your management teams to
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: ensure that you're authorized to use advanced tools like this.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: And Scott, let me just kind of summarize what we
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: talked about today and you really packed a lot in here.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: I'd love authors that show up with some really solid
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: tactics that are actionable. So tactic number one was, Hey,
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: get an assessment of yourself. Understand who you are as
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: a person. That'll enlighten your communication style moving forward, and
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: it'll enable you to be authentic. It's a word we
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: hear so much, but what does it actually mean. It's
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: being true to yourself. And then the next step is
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: is getting the personality assessments of your prospects, of your customers,
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: and then you can start to accommodate and be empathetic
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: in your communication style so that you're being the most
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: effective communicator with your prospects and your customers. And then finally,
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: you know, you really want to you want to bring
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: it all home and understand that it's not just individual
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: accounts that you're trying to accommodate, it's individual persona and
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: it's those individuals that are on the buying committee that
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: you want to personalize your engagement for each one of
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: them so that you're effective across the entire account. Scott,
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: is there anything that I missed that you would like
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: to add?
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's one more set.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: Get all right, get your contacts into the database. So
• 24:00
  Speaker 4: I show how seventy seventy percent of the buyers in
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: a buying group enter at the laid stage of the
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: buying process demo, trial, final presentation, eighty five percent of
• 24:11
  Speaker 4: those contacts are not in a database.
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: And the reason for it is.
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: That reps are so focused on trying to get the
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: deal closed, getting the proposal. They have MSA, textbacks, working
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: internal teams that they don't bother to take the names
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: of the people who are on the trial and in
• 24:27
  Speaker 4: the demo into the database. And if they do that,
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: and I showed an example, marketing can use intent tools
• 24:35
  Speaker 4: to tell you what's happening in the deal. So what
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: happens late in the deal people enter in and then
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: they start bursting their activities on the website and trying
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: to get up the speed because they haven't been involved
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: in the last seven or eight months of conversations. So
• 24:49
  Speaker 4: they're bursting their activities. They're downloading, they're watching, they hit forms.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: Marketing can then pick up intent signals on what they're
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: searching for.
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: So I give an example, all of.
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: The CEO two weeks before the final presentation shows up
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: and he searches on cash flow thirty five times. We
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: took that information from marketing. Were brought to the account
• 25:10
  Speaker 4: team and they said, why is he searching on cash flow?
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: And they're like, well, he wants to see project profitability.
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: That was what they were saying with the other team.
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: But what he was really looking at this is a
• 25:21
  Speaker 4: fast going company. It was burning cash and he needed
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: to know what was going on with projects, to know
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: his cash flow, to see whether or not he can
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: make investments or he need to lay people off.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: We changed the presentation to integrate the two and they.
• 25:36
  Speaker 4: Won the deal. It was a competitive account. If you
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: do that, if you put these people in the system,
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: it's important. I know management, I was always telling you,
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: puts contacts in the database. Put the contacts in the database.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: Marketing can pick up in ten signals and they can
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: help you win deals.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, hopefully someday we have AI that can put
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: that information.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: We can't for us.
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: I love that bonus tip, and that's just folks, we're
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: just scratching the surface of everything packed into Scott's book.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: He gave us three great tactics and a wonderful bonus
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: tip on that one, So thank you.
• 26:11
  Speaker 3: Scott.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: But you know the book again. The name of the
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: book is called The Hidden Buyer Journey. It's from Scott Gillum.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: It's available on Amazon. Scott, can you tell folks how
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: can they connect with you? How can they follow your work?
• 26:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so hit me up on LinkedIn. You can follow
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: Carbon Design on LinkedIn as well. There is a website
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: for the book and it's the same title, The Hidden
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: Buyer Journey. So if you want to check out more
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: information about what's inside the book, you can visit that website.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: But yeah, you know, I'm a big leader in human
• 26:47
  Speaker 4: and human selling and an advocate for it, and I
• 26:50
  Speaker 4: think the tools that we have available now can take
• 26:53
  Speaker 4: selling to the next level.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Well, you've been a fantastic human on our podcast and
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: sharing some great, powerful tactical tips that business developers could use. Scott,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: thank you for writing this book and contributing to the
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: business development profession.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, thank you, Tonny.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Business Development Podcast. Join
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: our free community of corporate partners and business development professionals
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: advancing the art, science, and ethics of the business development
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: profession at Gbdassociation dot org.