Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

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.

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 kind of that curious way, asking questions and I think that really helps and I think it really helps with dealing with people, those interpersonal skills areas.

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Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

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.

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.

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 2 or 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 organization 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 demandbase 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 plethora 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 maximize 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.

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Clip from Episode 11 featuring: Debe Rapson of Demandbase:

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 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.

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