Full Transcript below. Here you can find the condensed show notes.
Intro:
You’re listening to the sales success stories podcast where we deconstruct world class sales performers, to provide insights and strategies to help you improve. To learn more visit us at top 1 FM. Here is your host Scott Ingram
Scott Ingram:
I’m really excited to be talking with Debe Rapson again today. Debe is the top director of Strategic Account System Demand Base and has been for the last 7 years running. Now if you have been listening to this show for a while, you will know that Debe was the star of episode 4 which we recorded in person, but we didn’t discover that there had been a major audio issue until well after we were done recording. So I have taken down that recording and the only people who can access it now are those who are part of our sales success community. You too can become part of that community just head over to Top 1.FM email, enter your email address and that well prompt an invite and you’ll get access to all sorts of bonus material in there, and it’s free. So with that out of the way, welcome back to the show Deb.
Debe Rapson:
Thanks Scott.
Scott Ingram:
So let’s start like we always do with the top 3 things that you believe have allowed you to get to and stay in that number 1 position for all these years?
Debe Rapson:
Okay so as we all know it’s really challenging to get to the top of your game. There is no question about it. It takes a lot of years and a lot of experience and once you have arrived of course it’s tough to stay there right. It takes a lot of work to keep you on top. Probably, I mean I don’t know, 3 things that set me apart and allow me to really stay at the top of my game, and all my attributes that I’m going to talk about here are really focused on kind of doing the right thing. Doing the right thing by my customer, doing the right thing by my prospect. I would say probably the first is my genuine curiosity. I really am interested in hearing about my clients, about their business problems, their challenges, their pain points and really interested in hearing what initiatives they have, what are their goals and the things that are not only make them look good but make their organization look good, and people can always tell when you are genuinely interested or just kind of asking going along, waiting to pitch, and I think my genuine curiosity you know in asking questions and probing, you know pretty broad and deep in the conversation really give me the ability to stand out to my clients, because I spend my time listening and not pitching. So discovery in my book is all about listening not pitching, and it’s a thing that is kind of written out throughout my career and really helps me at this age in understanding, you know what my clients are up against and I think that people really appreciate listening’s and not pitching’s actually in the first exchanges. So that’s probably the top of my list that really makes me stand out I think. [03:03] Secondly is really along the same lines, doing what I say I’m going to do, whether it be following up with a client when I say that I’m going to, following up on an email or a phone call at the time that they asked me to. Really sticking to the promise that if I say I’m going to do something I do it, and I think unfortunately we don’t do that enough along the way and it really makes those who do stand out, and then probably the last is that I’m a challenger. I love problem solving, I love evangelizing and educating and I don’t mind standing up to a client when I think they’re kind of going rogue or going the wrong way, and saying hey you know based on my experience that I have 7 years of wisdom in it and experience, you know this is probably a better approach or you might want to think about doing it this way or that way, or that way is going to get you into a whole lot of trouble. So I probably won my biggest deals and my most challenging deals in challenging my clients, and once you do it you gain a lot of credibility. It’s probably one of the sharpest tools in my tool box that I have, and I really come across it just naturally.
Scott Ingram:
Such good stuff and I look forward to talking about that a little bit more, but before I start to dig deeper into my conversation with Debe, I wanted to quickly suggest that you set yourself up with a free account on Nudge. Nudge is a modern sales platform that uses AI to find actionable insights on your prospects and customers without all the grunt work. Sign up with Nudge to build real relationships with your buyers. Just type Top 1.FM/Nudge, Top 1.FM/Nudge and get started today. So Debe talk a little bit more about how you structure, and that discovery in that first conversation and what are some of the most powerful questions you like to ask?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah so I always try to start in asking general questions that aren’t going to threaten people or make them more uncomfortable right. So I want to ease right into it. So I want to understand a little bit about how their marketing organizations, so I sell marketing technology, so how their organization is structured, what are the different goals that they are looking to achieve in supporting the business? I typically ask broad based questions about their business. What is the company, where are they trying to grow their revenue, what are the key initiatives that the sea-level folks are pushing forward in the incoming year etc.? So starting broad and then narrowing into what are their challenges, and what are their goals and I typically like to ask the same question a little bit differently, maybe 3 or 4 times because when I do I find that I get a different answer and so I typically do that around their challenges, and their pain points and what’s really hurting, what’s really keeping them up at night if you will in a less canned way than that, but I think it’s really valuable to go deep and to ask those questions a little bit different way, because it nudges additional information out of them, and then I like to very often to different areas, probing deeper around some of those pain points and how they support the business, what is going to make them look good, how do they measure their success. Those types of things. My first discovery call is never any less than an hour where I’m just probing and asking questions, and giving a little nugget here and there so that I’m keeping them engaged and feel like they are getting something out of it, but really focusing on their story.
[07:00]
Scott Ingram:
How are you preparing for that? Are you, do you have a plan for where you think that conversation will go, and then you kind of follow it when you get there, what’s that look like?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah I spend a lot of time doing research before I have that first conversation. I work really closely with my SDR who helps me do a lot of research on the company, who’s who in the zoo, who the power players are, who the blockers might be, those kinds of thing and just understand a little bit more by reading you know, their 10K and their annual report. We have a tool called The Spider Book, the demand base has it and it provides insights into not only companies that are kind of low hanging fruit for you, but also those contacts at those companies and I can see what they are blogging about, what they are speaking about at conferences etc. so I prep by really understanding my contacts and those companies, and what they are trying to achieve so that when I go in I’m really validating. I’m demonstrating creditability that also validating that I understand what I think I understand.
Scott Ingram:
And let’s pivot a little bit. You talked about kind of the challenger being really key. Can you give us a specific example or 2 of how that’s manifested? I think you mentioned a couple of your biggest deals have come because you took that kind of approach. What did that actually look like?
Debe Rapson:
Not long ago I was in a deal with a company that will remain nameless, but they’re a large telecom manufacturing equipment company and we were in a sales cycle, and it was getting very competitive and because I had done so much discovery upfront, I really understood what the client was trying to achieve but my competitor was kind of wooing the client with gifts, and tickets to places and unfortunately the solution that the competitor was offering really and truly didn’t make sense for the client. [09:09] It wasn’t going to help that person achieve their, you know their goals and it was actually you know probably going to be one of the sticky decisions that sometimes clients make that make them look bad, and we have seen folks get fired over sometimes over those kinds of decisions. So instead of letting it go I decided to just have a heart to heart with the client, and say look whether you decide to move forward with me now, or whether you decide to move forward with demand base later, you know here is what I know and I kind of took it back to what I had learned in the discovery and provided documentation, on why that competitors solution wasn’t going to meet their needs, and it was a risk right because this person was being wooed and, and I could tell that this person was kind of moving in that direction to go with the decision that wasn’t really going to be good for her or her business. So I kind of stood up and said look, whether you decide now or later you need to know this because at the end of the day we are going to do business at some point in my career, and yours and I want to make sure that I have done all that I can do to steer you in the right direction and to be transparent with you, and the client did a 180 turnaround and thanked me and this person had a pretty big ego. So that was part of the risky stuff of telling this person, hey you are going down the wrong path here right, and did a 180 turnaround and we ended up getting the business, and she told me she really valued me doing that and you know providing the evidence that she needed to really understand why.
Scott Ingram:
That’s a great story. Thank you for sharing that.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah.
Scott Ingram:
So Debe talk about your role today at Demand Base and how you got to number 1 there.
Debe Rapson:
So I joined Demand Base when we were 18 employees. It was without a doubt the biggest risk in my career. I have never been with such a small company and you know I came in as their first enterprise rep with a named account list, and because I came from the same industry I was able to get some pretty quick traction with my network, and really just grew from there every year, getting about you know, 200% or so of my quota and really growing and developing Demand Basis revenue, and bringing up some great logos. So it was really just about understanding and having that background of network and background in that industry, and very strategically going after the business that I thought made good sense Demand Base where we would really bring value to our customers.
[12:10]
Scott Ingram:
That is a great question. I now think it has played a huge role in my success but 20 years ago if you’d ask me that question, id probably would have said I don’t think it matters at all but through the experience that I’ve gotten, and the expertise that you get by staying in 1 industry I think it matters a lot. Not only for the experience that you get in the industry and it really helps you to become an expert, and provide credibility to your customers that you really know your stuff, but the networking factor is absolutely huge. I’ve had customers for the last 10 years that I have been in this industry buy from me 3 or 4 times, because you know they I’m not going to steer them on. I’m always going to be straight up with them and I’m going to make sure that they are well taken care of, and that huge in just getting that repeat in business because our clients move around to other companies, and we move around to other companies but staying in that same industry I think has really benefited me.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah I’m glad you said that. It’s funny, that to me was one of my original premises for this show, and kind of the hypothesis of what makes the most consistent top performers, and I’ve seen over my career, just this thread of those who are unlike you, just year after year after year in that number 1 spot. I think they are benefiting from all of those things and I think you got to be really careful if your experienced in sales and thinking about making a significant move, that you can really lose a lot of that and I’ve really been caught into that myself in where I have positioned myself in the work that I do today, in staying very close to where I have been for the last, I’m losing count now, 7 or 8 years.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah I think early on its great to experiment to understand where is your passion, where are you successful, do you prefer talking to finance or do you prefer talking to marketing and sales or HR. once you find your people and you start getting success, I think it’s a great idea to stay in the same industry. I started my career in advertising sales. I moved over to software and telecommunications, and then I went into learning management systems and I found myself drawn back to the marketing and advertising space, and it’s definitely where I have had phenomenal success in my career.
[15:10]
Scott Ingram:
You know it’s interesting that you say that, because I went through a very similar process. I mean I sold to virtually every part of the organization. I’ve sold to IT, I’ve sold to finance, I’ve sold to operations and I’ve sold to sales and marketing and I got to a point in my career a number of years ago where I was at a fork, and decided you know my people are the sales and marketing. I feel like a lot of the rest of the organization, they are much more risk givers, they are backwards lurking in a kind of see wayish. Whereas sales and marketing, they are the future focus and that how I operate and how like to play, and it’s a good match. So let’s keep going with that. Talk a little bit more about your origin story and how you got into the sales game.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah so I think I shared this with you before with bad audio, so we will hopefully do it better this time. So I was doing an internship in college and I went to Indiana University, and I decided to try going into news reporting and I checked out a couple of radio stations in Indianapolis, which was an hour away and landed an internship. So pulled myself right into it and about 2 weeks into the internship where they sent me out with a microphone and a tape recorder, and wanted me to go and interview people in the 10 you now commerce meetings and local types of events. I realized I was pretty board by it and it that’s probably not such a great idea 2 weeks into an internship, and what you thought was you career path to get bored. So I happened to pass the general manager in the radio station and he said hey how is it going, and I said to him actually I’m not really enjoying it that much. I’m a little bit board and he just looked at me and started laughing, and I said what’s so funny and he said well you seem like a real natural sales person. He said why don’t you go and ride with my top sales rep for a couple of weeks, and come back and let me know what you think of it and so I did. I went out with his top rep who happened to be a woman and spent a couple of days with her, and I immediately knew that sales was the right career for me and the reason why was because she was kind of going around in her car, you know meeting with clients, taking them out to lunch. It was kind of like running errands and being out of the office right. Always going out, meeting with clients, listening, pivoting with them and the one thing that attracted me and this was back in the very late 80’s, is she had one of those big block cell phones in her car, and I was like wow you can talk on a phone in your car. I thought that was pretty neat. So between that and how she was spending her days I said wow this is really it, and I went back into the general manager’s office and thanked him for that opportunity because it really set me on my path, and after that internship I moved out to California and sold myself right into a radio station sales job with Coffee, Coffee radio.
[18:28]
Scott Ingram:
That’s great and along the way I’m sure there were a few steps between where you started and where you are today. What were the most important steps or the most important lessons or the pit that you fell in? Give us some ideas there of what was most impactful to you for the rest of that journey?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah I think that I had the opportunity to really experience selling different things early on. So I started in radio and made some really good friends. I got the opportunity KFY owned a television station. I got the opportunity to also sell television advertising. So the first was air and the second was time and then after that I went to selling magazines which is space. So in the first 7 years of my career I got to sell air, time and space and if you can sell air, time and space you can pretty much sell anything. So I was really fortunate in not selling sincerely a product or something that was conceptual, and something that evaporates and that is a skill set right, because you have got to be able to build out a story, evangelize what it is that you are offering and it something that disappears after. So I think advertising was just a great training ground for me, and it also really gave me the opportunity to really learn what I was passionate about, and form there I got the opportunity to manage and that in itself I think in may ways has made me a better rep. I worked for MCI which World Com bought not long after. So worked there for 4 years and managed a team. I wasn’t going in to manage, I was actually looking for an enterprise type of sales position but the general manager there said, hey I really loved to you know put you in a management position if you are interested. So it was kind of a neat opportunity for me to do something a little bit different early on, and I managed and took over 4 people and grew it to a team of 21 and managed another manager under me, and it was actually a really fun job because I had a Hawaii and Bay area territory, and that was really fun to take those quarterly trips to Hawaii to manage my team there.
[21:04]
Scott Ingram:
That’s awesome and apart from the course Debe you had 500% growth while you were doing it.
Debe Rapson:
Pretty much. Yeah it was great. I did. I had great growth and we went from being the worst team at that company, to being the number 1 team at the company. So it was a just a really neat you know opportunity to see how you grow something’s, especially from the management position. What I learned in that job that was just a perfect lesson for that time is that middle management is not a lot of fun. They ended up closing out those territory’s sales reps which was kind of like the young pops. They ended up closing out that division and letting everyone go, and I ended up leaving as well during that time and changed the course out of telecommunications, and into software to kind of change the course and direction of my career, and started selling to HR. So you know it was tough lessons and that you know, companies make decisions that when you are middle management you know you don’t really have a seat at the table, but one of the things management did for me, it really helped me to become a better rep. I understood very quickly after that when I decided to go back into sales and carry a bag. I decided it really gave me some great insight really how to be a better rep. The things that managers think about, you know solving problems for myself and bringing solutions to management etc. So it was really neat. A neat experience.
Scott Ingram:
And why did you decide to go back into the individual contributor role, versus continuing on a management path?
Debe Rapson:
Because the thing that motivates me Scott is freedom and money buys you freedom, and I made a good living definitely for that time in my life. I made a good living in management but I could make a lot better living, a lot more money by changing my tracery and going into software, and going back to carrying a bag. So for me it was not about climbing the ladder and not interested in the power, I’m interested in the money and I learned that about myself which you know is great insights.
Scott Ingram:
That’s awesome. So Debe in our first conversation we talked a lot about kind of qualifying an actual sales role, and you talked about Main Base is the biggest risks you took on in your career. So how are you thinking about that, what questions were you asking going into a new role type of opportunity?
[24:02]
Debe Rapson:
Yeah I ask all the hard questions. I don’t typically again, I don’t start with them. I almost treat it like a sales cycle right. I start with, tell me about your organization, who are the key players, what is your management style right when you go through all those kinds of things and discovery in their view, and I really like to run that interview like any sales rep, I want to take control of things. So I really like to start by asking those questions and really qualifying them as this is an organization that I want to be a part of, and then what I like to do is I like to speak to the players in the organization that I’m going to work with, a that are making the decisions in the organization. So as an example when I interviewed a Demand Base 7 years ago, I spoke with of course the director of sales, actually I think it was BB of sales at the time who was the hiring manager, but then I also spoke with the CMO, the CTO, the VP of Bizdev and the CEO and I asked to speak with them and then the last person which typically most people don’t request, is I asked to speak to one of their board members because it was such a young startup. I wanted to make sure that the company was going to be viable, that I liked the path that they were taking. I wanted to make sure that the product was solid, and what I did was I asked similar, some different but some similar questions to all those different folks in the organization, so that I could triangulate and really understand is everybody singing the same tune, or am I getting different answers which intimates that there is an issue there in the way things are going in that company.
Scott Ingram:
It’s really interesting and what’s most important, I mean when you are looking at that and typically you are not just talking to 1 company, is it the com plan, is it the culture, is it the product, what are you looking for as the most important factors to determine where you are ultimately going to go?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah I think you actually beautifully stated it. I think it is first does the product work, is it paper ware or does it work and you really got to talk to the right people and get a demo of it. So I didn’t mention but I also talk to the folks that you know that do the demo. You really got to know am I selling paper ware here or does this thing really work, and are there clients successful right. Sometimes I even back channel and will call a couple of their clients to find companies that are listed through my network you know, like hey how happy are you, what are you happy with and what aren’t you happy with kind of thing. [27:03] So you know is the solution solid, can I sell it. The second thing I look at is what does the com plan look like and what is the territory look like, and territory is probably one of the most important pieces for me. I want to understand what my opportunity is in that territory. So I’ll go pretty deep in my research there and then the third piece is definitely culture, because I’m a challenger I’m best suited for a startup culture. Large companies don’t love people like me. So I definitely look at that. You know you kind of create that criteria and create your check list, and you know interview it with your top 4 or 5 companies and very quickly I think you can weed out you know, who are your top 2 or 3 choices.
Scott Ingram:
And any red flags, like what sets your alarm off.
Debe Rapson:
Well vapor ware for sure. Oh yeah we are working on that. It’s going to be fully connected in the next quarter, yeah that defiantly makes me concerned. Vapor ware is a huge one. When I ask questions, I’m triangulating with different folks in the organization and I’m getting different answers. That’s a red flag. I also if I have the opportunity to talk to the top rep I always do that. That’s typically I’m in a final stage with the company and I’ll ask to speak with their top rep. first of course being competitive I want to assess their top rep right and secondly I want to understand what do they think about the organization, and what they like about working there and what don’t they like about working there. I really want to understand what are the words so that every company has words, I just want to be able to assess what are your awards.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah great stuff. So Debe let’s take kind of a flip side and take us to a time where things weren’t so easy and you were struggling a bit more, what was one of those biggest challenges and how did you get through it?
Debe Rapson:
So that’s a great question. I would say 2 of my biggest challenges in my career have been, the first is you know probably the toughest is getting fired. You are not a great sales rep if you never have been fired.
Scott Ingram:
Oh good I didn’t know I had checked that box of greatness. That’s fantastic to know.
Debe Rapson:
Or all of that.
[33:00]
Scott Ingram:
Or all of the above, exactly. All at once, every quarter. I’ve been there, done that. How are you dealing with that right? What is your process, what is your approach to not let it completely throw you for a loop and throw you off your game, so that your still effective?
Debe Rapson:
Great question. You are definitely crawling in my brain right now. I think that what goes through my mind is a complete reassessment when those things happen, and they pretty much, territory doesn’t change every year although some segment of my territory definitely changes every year you know. Maybe its adding accounts or cutting accounts or focusing more on customers, versus prospect. So certainly there is an element of change every year. I really sit down and go right into research mode and put together you know, and evaluate what is my opportunity here. How can I, can I capitalize, can I make the numbers that I want to make, can I make the money that I want to make? Is my situation still ideal and I’ve got you know a list of things like, this is an example, for me working in the office is a non-starter. So if somebody said to me okay now next year we want you to you know come 100% into the office every day. That would a no go decision for me. Making a certain amount of money, you know if I can make over great, if it’s less it’s a no go decision for me. So I’m very clear about what that criteria is and I just go into evaluation mode. Can I do it with what I’m given here and I also don’t hesitate to negotiate whatever it is that’s changing. So if, you know, just because somebody is in management, doesn’t mean that they’re always right and I have a lot of experience under my belt and of course have challenger, so, you know, I obviously try not to, you know, cut combat the situation but more thoughtfully challenge the decision that’s being made; If I think it’s not right or not gonna work.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, and so it sounds like once you’ve done that then, then you know, you make a decision one way or the other and then, and then it’s fully commitment and go.
Debe Rapson:
Exactly. That’s exactly right. The key is you wanna be in control of the decision; you don’t wanna, things to happen do you? You wanna drive your destiny and although sometimes if it feels like things are happening to us, I think it’s important to realise that [36:00], that we actually do get to drive our destiny and the more pro-active you are about it, the better life you’ll lead both professionally and personally.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, awesome.
So the next line of questioning, I’ve done a half a dozen of interviews since the last time we talked and I’m getting better at this so now I know, I actually think I know your answer but I know that the first question I have to ask is are you more of a morning person or are you a night owl?
Debe Rapson:
I’m a night owl.
Scott Ingram:
I knew that.
So, the next question because you’re a night owl then is what does your evening routing look like?
Debe Rapson:
That’s a good question.
You know I, typically I end my day about 5:30, 6, 6:30. I get my ‘tushy’ over to the gym and get a work out in or go up into the Oakland Hills and have a hike or go grab a yoga class and then I come home and do dinner with my family and have some good connection with them and my husband’s a teacher so he goes to bed pretty early because he wakes up at 5.
And then I go back and organize myself for the next day whether it’s finishing up a presentation that I’m building or taking a look at, you know, what my plan of attack is gonna be the next day or you know, what was leftover that I wasn’t able to accomplish today and plan it throughout the week. So, I always kinda jump back in at night typically, you know, for about an hour, sometimes it goes into 2, 2 and a half hours, I try not to. You know, I try to relax and kinda meditate a little, chill out before I go to sleep at night but definitely I spend a little bit of time, pulling together, whatever it was from today and figuring it out, you know, getting myself prepared for tomorrow.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah and talk about that in a little bit more detail [38:00], I mean, when you’re going through that prep for the next day, how are you doing that? How are you trying to structure your day so it’s most effective?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah, I look at the things that I need to do to move the needle in my deals. Sometimes that’s following up on stuff that is in process, you know, follow up thank you notes after a meeting with a client or sending case studies or you know, research, white papers, etc.
Sometimes it’s just making a list of folks that I need to follow up with, right, ‘hey tomorrow I’ve really got to check the box here with this 4 companies and make sure that I touch base and that we move the needle.’ Sometimes it’s preparing, I always take a look at my calendar, you know, a little, a day or 2 ahead. Then what do I really need to focus on for tomorrow? Do I have to prepare for a presentation? You know. Do I need to make a list of companies that I wanna attack? Right, that I wanna start going after and really working with and maybe I’ve got to do a little bit of research before Discovery calls the next day etc, so it’s kind of whatever’s on my plate. I’ll take a look at typically every Sunday night I do that for the week ahead and then I do that on a daily basis so, really just so I kinda stay on top of my game and I continue to move the needle forward so, I’m not a naturally organised person so I have to have a discipline around it otherwise I wouldn’t be organised at all.
Scott Ingram:
And talk about the Sunday piece cause I know that’s a big part for you. How much time are you spending on Sunday and are you using that to kinda lay out the week to come?
Debe Rapson:
You know typically I’m just spending an hour on Sunday and [40:00] and typically it just kinda that Sunday night time frame where I’m kinda looking at what do I need to do this week? What are the things that I wanna accomplish? Where do I need to move that needle? And I schedule those things into my week so I literally go through, I make a list of what my goals are for the week and that you know, includes kinda what do I wanna accomplish and then what are the tasks and things that I need to do to accomplish those goals and then I take the time to actually schedule them in and then the other piece that’ll probably make you laugh but the other piece that I do is I schedule in my workouts so, you know, Tuesdays and Thursdays, I like to go to yoga and you know, Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I wanna hit the TRX at the gym and on the weekends, you know, on Sunday I wanna do a hike with a friend kind of thing so I really also schedule that stuff in, I mean obviously the weekends I don’t schedule as much but I really try to schedule it into my work week otherwise it doesn’t happen.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah [Crosstalk][41:04]. I wouldn’t laugh at that, it makes a lot of sense, right, if working out and being healthy is one of your priorities, the way you make it a priority is if you put it on the calendar.
Debe Rapson:
Exactly. You get it.
Scott Ingram:
I get it.
So, before we continue, I’ve got one more little bonus for our listeners and the deadline for this is coming up fast. My friend Craig Rosenburg, who many people know as the ‘Funnel-holic’ is getting ready to host the second annual TOPO summit in San Francisco on April 12th and 13th. What makes this even unique is nearly all of the presenters are actual practioners, kinda like this show. And I’ll be there and recommend you join me, you can do that at TopOne.FM/Topo… T,O,P,O and we actually have a ticket to the event that we’re gonna give away in our CL Success community on February 24th. So if you’re not already in the community you can head over to TopOne.FM, get on that mailing list and that’ll again automatically prompt [42:00] an invite and you can find the TOPO challenge from there so I’d love to see you in San Francisco, Debe may be all. I’ll come see you all on there.
Debe Rapson:
Oh, I’d love that and I wanna go to that. How do I get that ticket?
Scott Ingram: You go to TopOne.FM and you get on the mailing list and you get on that community.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah, I’ve heard great stuff about that actually. I’ve heard great stuff about that conference. That’s awesome that you’ll be there.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, absolutely and Craig just does a great, great job and is actually, I think my script is wrong, it is all practioners, there’s none of these… ‘I wrote a book on sales, I haven’t sold anything in 20 years but you should listen to me’, it’s all people who are active in leading and part of very fast growing sales organisations and learning what they’re doing. So, it’s very very much aligned with what we’re trying to do with this show.
So, worth checking out.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah, it sounds awesome.
Scott Ingram: So, Debe, what motivates you?
Debe Rapson:
I think I said earlier and it really is always true throughout, you know, all the time that I’ve been selling; it’s really freedom. Freedom motivates me and freedom is tightly tied to money. I really want to be able to make choices in my life based on really what I want whether it’s ‘I want this car, I want this house, I want this vacation,’ I need to, you know I wanna spend time with my family. I wanna have that freedom to choose. It’s kinda like, you know when you’re in school, if you have great grades, you have choices. If you don’t have great grades, the choices, you know you don’t have a choice…
Scott Ingram:
They get made for you.
Debe Rapson:
… this is the way you’re able to go. Exactly. It’s made for you and I really like choices and I like freedom. I wanna run my day how I wanna run it. If I wanna do yoga in the afternoon, on Tuesday, I wanna be able to do it.
And so that’s kinda what rules, the way that I [44:00] move in the world. And making money gives me choices and gives me freedom. And it’s truly what motivates me and propels me forward to do that hour on Sunday night when I’m kinda tired and just wanna chill out to the Netflix. It motivates me to take a little bit of time to prepare because I know that when I do that, I perform better.
Scott Ingram:
Love it. What about when you’re having an ‘off’ day? What do you do?
Debe Rapson:
Well, if everything’s going wrong that day, I walk away from the day. I listen and watch to what’s happening around me and if things aren’t going my way, not just in one meeting or you know, a bad interaction but if things just kinda seem like they’re not going well that day and we all have those days, typically, honestly I walk away and I go for a hike. It’s really what I do, don’t tell my boss but actually my boss knows, but you know, typically that’s what I’ll do.
If it’s not that situation and things just aren’t going well, I you know, like some things happened or this meeting went really wrong; I typically can very quickly identify what happened. I’m very analytical and wanna understand where things went wrong. Where I gift, or where as a team we perform, so I really look inside of myself and typically when I look inside of myself, the answer’s right there.
Scott Ingram:
Nice. Nice. And if you can’t find it right away, it’s up in the Oakland Hills somewhere.
Debe Rapson:
Exactly.
Scott Ingram:
Awesome.
So, I’m curious about, just belief systems or actions and things like that. When you look at average sales reps or the B-players [46:00] who aren’t performing consistently at the top; what are some things that you see that they do or they believe that you think is nuts or is standing between them and significant success?
Debe Rapson:
Yea, the one thing that I… Well I won’t say one, I’ll probably say two or three. The one thing that really stands out, kinda jumps to my mind when you ask that question is that folks don’t take enough time to really, properly do discovery. And people who know me, know that I talk about discovery a lot because it is the thing that I believe sets me apart and all the top players apart from the B-players and the C-players; is taking the time to really understand what this client is trying to achieve and what are those clients’ roadblocks and the company culture that is, you know, helping them, you know to excel to success or holding them back. You know, are they evangelists, people who are on the cutting edge or not so much?
So, you know, really taking the time to fully do discovery and listen and not pitch during discovery is probably, you know, the number one thing that jumps out at me and I do think it’s crazy to pitch during discovery and I haven’t done it for probably 25 years. I mean it is a solid process that I’m loyal to because it’s really moved me forward and I see it as something that really sets the stage for everything else that happens in the sales cycle.
Once you understand what’s going on in that company and you understand what their motivations are and you understand how they make their decisions and what’s gonna make this person look good or bad and how they measure success and what their real pain points are, not [48:00] just ‘hey I’ve got this challenge or that’, but where does it really hurt? Where’s the friction behind that’s really standing in the way of them getting success? Once you understand those things, it sets the table for really being prescriptive in each solution and really being relevant to that prospect and that’s how you get deals done. So, listening and not pitching during discovery is I think, very important and I can’t understand why people pitch during discovery. I just don’t get it because it shuts out all their opportunity to really learn about their prospect.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah.
Debe Rapson:
And then… Yeah, and then the second thing that kinda jumps out at me is just folks not following through on what they said that they were gonna do, you know. I mean, sometimes it’s laziness or not being organised you know, or getting distracted whatever it is but I think that it takes away from our credibility as sales people when we don’t deliver what we said. And I think it’s crazy when people do that, if you have the opportunity to be in front of someone, you know, do the right thing, take care of them, do what you say you’re gonna do.
So those are probably the two things that I think are obvious to me and a little bit crazy when folks don’t do it.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah.
Debe talk about how you’re setting up a pure discovery call like that because I will tell you, I watched a train wreck this week by somebody who, one they weren’t prepared so that was the bigger issue but the client expectation was ‘wait, I thought I was seeing a demo’, you know and it just wasn’t set up properly. So how are you setting up that conversation so that it’s clear what’s gonna happen?
Debe Rapson:
Yeah, any SDR that has worked with me before and made that mistake once [50:00] never made it again. And it has happened where the client has said to me, “Hey, I thought I was getting a demo.” Wait, what? And it’s probably happened 3 times in the last 7 years, demand based, but it never it never happens again with the just CR.
You know the way that I set it up is, I really try to help the rep understand the SDR whose typically setting up my appointments and if it’s me setting up my appointments, I’m in the same way very clear. I help them to understand, you know, our first discussion, so when we get together next week, I really wanna spend the time to understand your business, the things that you’re trying to achieve, your goals and initiatives and I also wanna understand your challenges are keeping you from being successful, look here. And I wanna understand how you’re mentored, so let’s spend, you know, an hour together, I’ll ask you a bunch of questions and happy to share some information about what we do as well but then I just wanna ask you a lot of questions and really understand, you know, what’s happening in your world and then I’ll come back and I’ll show you what demand based can do for you. I’ll talk to you about the value that it’s gonna bring you, I’m not gonna show up and throw up, I’m gonna be really prescriptive and focus on your business. And I never have somebody say, “Yeah no, I don’t want that.”
Scott Ingram:
I don’t want real help; just write me a prescription right?
Debe Rapson:
Exactly and once I help the SDR’s kinda understanding, they’re young reps also, the SDR’s and typically you know they don’t necessarily understand that, how important it is to that kind of discovery so I spend a lot of time working with the SDR’s and mentoring the SDR’s so that we can sell business together and they make money and I make money. [52:00]
It’s a lot of time, you got to invest, right, you’ve gotta invest in your team and invest in your clients to be successful.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, all that’s great. What’s your favorite bit of advice or coaching that you do with your new SDR’s?
Debe Rapson:
I really sit down and walk through my territory with them. I spend typically the first month with them when they’re kinda brand new when they’re working with me, I spend the first month or so meeting with them twice a week and walking through kinda the different things that I know are proven, you know, that will make them successful so, I look at things like how are they prospecting, I wanna understand how they write because most sales reps don’t right well, don’t write emails well. So I really spend some time up front on that and pass some templates and help them to understand how to send out emails to prospects that are relevant and interesting to prospects versus you know, ‘canned kind of’ emails trying to get an appointment. I really focus on that relevancy so spending time with the emails, walking through my target account list and guiding them to either specific stakeholders, specific roles that I call on where I know I can get good success and the of course, you know, how I would like them to communicate with that person and part of that communication is how are they gonna ask for the meeting and you know, setting the expectation around that hour of discovery so that’s definitely part of that process.
And then I meet with them on a regular basis after that initial 30 days is, we’re along the journey together, I meet with them typically where, you know, where I am [54:00] 2 0r 3 times, 4 times a week and typically, I’m you know, meeting them once or twice a week, “Hey let’s set our goals for the week.” “Who are you gonna call on?” “What folks are you going to get into?” You know this organisation over here; we need to understand who’s who in the zoo. We need some ordered structured information etc, so, you have different stages of sales cycles that you’re in with a company, if you’re in the beginning stage, I help them to understand how to do the research and demand based like I said has a great tool spider book so it’s nice that we have that and we definitely drink our own champagne so we use that tool as well as a plucker of other tools, like Rain King etc. And we’re really working together, I’m not just letting them kinda ‘go fish’ and hopefully have good luck. I wanna maximise their opportunity and help them to optimize the time that they’re prospecting for me. I really wanna help them optimize it so that we get good results so I move fast for sure, heavily.
Scott Ingram:
Well it makes sense right I mean you’re investing in somebody who the more successful they are, the more successful you are.
Debe Rapson:
Exactly.
Scott Ingram: So, Debe let’s, that’s a really good transition to talk about Kind of mentoring in general I mean obviously in those cases that are being the mentor but how do you think about mentors and foster hosts kinds of relationships?
Debe Rapson:
Well, that’s a great question; I wish I had a mentor, I’m mentor-less. It’s really unfortunate; maybe would you like to be my mentor?
Scott Ingram:
I think it’s the other way around, that’s why I keep calling you.
Debe Rapson:
I don’t know.
You know, I really don’t have a mentor, there’ve been a couple of women along the way, in my career, who have provided some guidance [56:00] and advice but I think that the industry that I’m in, which is software solutions, I don’t think there are a lot of women before me who are ahead of me, who are on the same track that I‘m on. I think I’m that generation, I look at the other women that are my peers and kind of in my age group, who are very senior and they’re all kind of with me, bond-storming if you will, you know typically we’re the only women sitting at the table for the meeting and we’re all typically top performers and we’d like to stay in the sales game, right, you know for maybe throughout the rest of our career. And there aren’t that many people in software sales that are, number one women, that are life time careers sales people. And it’s not to say that a mentor couldn’t be a man, absolutely, you know I’d love again, to have a mentor but I haven’t really found anyone who I’ve come up against that you know, who I’ve met up with who I have that kind of relationship with which makes it challenging because there are just not that many folks kind of ahead of me in a similar position. So it makes it challenging, it makes me kind of have to make up things as I go; I talk to my mom a lot, she’s a strong woman.
Scott Ingram:
Well Debe, it’s so interesting because w talked about this again, in the first conversation, but it’s become even more pronounced. So obviously women are a minority in the sales profession. I am finding more and more that they are at the top a lot and in addition to that [58:00] I think that rarely do you see a woman who is a C-player in the sales organisation. They’re not at the bottom, so I’m curious as to, I won’t plant any seeds, I have some ideas that I’ve been developing but I’m curious into your perspective as to why do you think that is?
Debe Rapson:
Well, I think it’s because, I think women are raised to be aware of their surroundings and I think women are picking up the social cues and they’re watching all around them as they grow up, you know, they’re watching their moms you know, when they’re getting dragged to the store with their moms and you know, they’re watching and observing how people communicate and how they interact in the world and I think naturally, that’s what we do. And I think guys lead a little bit differently. I think they’re a little bit more in their own body if you wanna call it and kinda charging forward and sometimes don’t pay as much attention to kind of what’s going on around them, their surroundings. I’m being really general obviously so you’ll have to forgive me for that.
Oh Kona’s gonna start barking here.
Sorry, my cute little 15 pound dog is acting like an alpha chick here.
Scott Ingram:
I was gonna say like cut this out but now we have to leave it in.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah.
So, what I would say is that, those kind of skills, watching and listening really help make a strong sales rep because you’re aware of what’s going on around you. You are listening to people and engaging in [1:00:00] in kind of that curious way, asking questions and I think that really helps and I think it really helps with dealing with people, those inter personal skills there for you.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, that’s pretty interesting. It’s along the lines of where my theories are too and it just has to do with the level of empathy and a stronger listening ability and it goes back, it really goes back to your discovery and genuine caring. It’s all those things that you said in the very beginning were what set you apart.
Debe Rapson:
Yeah, I think so, I really do, goo point. I really think so, I think those are the kinds of things that make a difference in good sales reps, you know, just picking up those cues. It’s one of the reasons I love Scott, to be in the room when I’m pitching. I don’t really like pitching over the phone or over the web because you don’t get the ability to read the visual cues and I think it’s so important and even when I do, and every once in a while I do have to pitch over a web meeting, I always turn on the video and say hello, like I’ll keep the video on the whole way through. I’ll keep it on to because I really do wanna read their facial expressions.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, that’s smart and getting easier and easier to do, it’s funny although it’s a two-edged sword and I’ve got funny stories. This has been a very interesting week but the Blue Jeans for example; you get these newer kind of web meeting platforms if any of you have used Blue Jeans. It launches right it, like default is camera on so, if you haven’t been down that road before and you work from home and you get a Blue Jeans meeting, you might wanna put your thumb over your camera and, because it takes a minute to turn it off. It’s pretty interesting.
Debe Rapson:
That’s funny. My zoo meeting does the exact same thing and if I, you know, I work outta my house so if I’ve got the ponytail on top of my head, my client’s gonna see it.
Scott Ingram:
Yep, yep. [1:02:00] Yeah it’s too bad we’ve gotta be so mindful of those things again.
Debe Rapson:
I know.
Scott Ingram:
So Debe, I’m playing with a little bit of a new idea. I don’t know if I call this a ‘soap box session’ or section or I kinda wanna reward the folks who have invested the time with us, who are obviously committed to their learning. They’ve been with us for an hour so is there a fun story that you really like to tell? Or something that you feel like, somebody that’s listening to this, that’s obviously committed to their own success that really should know and take to heart going forward.
Debe Rapson:
You know what, unfortunately I don’t really have a fun story to tell but I would just say you know, listening to yourself and being genuine and listening to your own intuition, inside of yourself is a little kid whose gonna tell it to you straight. And listening to yourself about how you should be behaving is a really important thing to do, you know, reading a situation, there’s always that voice inside of you that says, “Oh man, I really screwed that up.” Or, “Wow, I hit a home run there.” Listen to that and you know, pay attention and you know, and find that natural curiosity and passion and if you don’t love what you do, stop doing it and go do something else because whatever it is that you love to do you’ll be able to make money outta it. You know, it’s really about listening to that voice inside I think and treating people well, you know, treating clients like they’re friends, you know, would you not return a phone call from a client, oh I’m sorry, from a friend? No, of course. Would you do that follow up? Of course you would. You know just treating people well and listening to yourself and I think your path will unfold [1:04:00] in front of you.
Scott Ingram:
Yeah, it so, I’m glad you brought up the belief thing because I feel like that is probably one of the most consistent, maybe even the most important themes that has started to emerge from this as well, right. If you don’t believe in your product whole heartedly it’s just not gonna work right? And the rule I’ve always had, whether it’s belief in product or anything else, I’ve always said if you don’t love what you do, it’s work and work sucks.
Debe Rapson:
It really does. Totally agree.
Scott Ingram:
Good, well I think we have done a fantastic job here. Any parting thoughts or shall we call it a day?
Debe Rapson:
Let’s call it a day but I just wanna thank you for re-taping and giving me the opportunity, it’s been really fun and fun getting to know you as well and I’m looking forward to listening to some of these other radio shows. So thank you.
Scott Ingram:
Beautiful, thanks again Debe.
Outro:
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