“Any problem we’re solving affects a lot of people. So you got to have a lot of people involved.” – Luke Floyd in today’s Tip 1759
Why do you multi-thread?
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today’s tip comes from Luke Floyd. Luke is an Enterprise AE at Deel. Here he is:
Luke Floyd: Why do we multi-thread? I don’t know if you’ve seen the latest stats on the impact of multi-threading in your sales cycles. Outreach claims adding more than one contact to a deal increases its close rate 37%. Gong claims about 31%, bump on win rates when you have more than one contact. Usergems claims multi-threading, specifically with previous product champions in new orgs, can increase close rates 51%. That’s incredible.
But for the question of why do we multi-thread? You might look at those numbers and say, Well, we do it because we make more money by closing more deals. And it’s true that multi-threading has a knock-on effect, which results in higher win rates and more mission dollars in your pocket. But one of my issues with sales tools stats like these is they tell you what the best practice results in, but they never tell you why the best practice was done in the first in place. It’s confusing correlation for causation, which is a classic logical fallacy. To recap, multi-threading is involving multiple people, maybe even multiple departments, ideally, or multiple work streams in a discussion on the commercial item of solving a business problem.
I have product A, I need contacts from finance and HR, and the legal team to review product A because it impacts all of them. If I just work with finance, I’m less likely to win. But again, why do we multi-thread? Because B2B sales is about solving business problems through change, and businesses have unlimited amounts of problems to solve, yet limited resources, time, money, headcount, energy, to solve them. But a problem that impacts multiple people could be a problem we’re solving, a problem that just only affects one person. Why should the business prioritize solving that over a problem that impacts 10 or 100 people? Now you see why we multi-threat. Any problem we’re solving for a business, given those limited resources and unlimited problems to solve, must be a problem that affects multiple people.
So if you don’t have multiple people involved in your cycle, you’re either, A, focused on solving a problem and it only affects one person, or B, you’re not focused on solving a problem. You’re focused on pitching your product, and your contact on the other side is having to do the actual legwork that results in commissions of translating how your product solves the problem for multiple people on their team.
So the next time you see some content multi-threading, and it claims you should do it because it increases your win rate, it’s true. But ask yourself, why does it do that? The reason why you multi-thread in sales, it’s not because it increases sales cycles, results in higher win rates, or increases average deal size. Those things are true. They’re just correlated with solving bigger business problems, not magically happening because another person gets added to the invite. If you center yourself as a practitioner around practices and tactics because they help you win or increase your commission, you’re by default self-centered.
It’s a crappy way to live and you deserve better, not to mention your poor prospects who hate engaging with you because they can smell the commission breath and self-centeredness. But if you center yourself on the problem to be solved and the work to be done, it feels like magic when it unfolds, but it’s not magic. It’s just what humans are evolved to do, solve problems collaboratively. So again, why do you multi-thread? Because any problem we’re solving affects a lot of people. So you got to have a lot of people involved.
Scott Ingram: For links to connect with Luke, just click over to DailySales.Tips/1759. Once you’ve done that, be sure to come back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!