Podcast – Selling in a Time of Corona – Transcripts

Elliot Epstein – intro: So someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             In the last 20 years, I've worked with a lot of major corporates around the world. And many of you will have never seen a time like this. In this hopefully very limited series. I'm going to discuss with you what you can do in this crisis, how to navigate the opportunities that will present themselves. And by the way, this is not unprecedented. A word that is so unused. I think the word unprecedented has never been more used than it is right now. We've had the GFC, we've had SARS, ask a parent or a grandparent about the war, Spanish flu that killed over 50 million people. We've had the great depression we've had stock market crashes and all manner of issues in between. All you need to do is ask a refugee, fleeing persecution, what their life was like and how precarious things were. So this is indeed a very challenging time for many of us.

And there are going to be casualties along the way, but there is an opportunity to thrive and keep alive and enjoy what we do and maintain our lifestyle because this will pass. In each of these episodes. I want to discuss with you one of the key elements required to engage clients and to make sure that you have the best possible chance of getting through this with retaining revenues, retaining good relationships and making sure that you stay on top of it. So you come out of it feeling pretty good as well. Even though there are going to be some difficult days ahead. This first episode, we're going to be discussing empathy because whilst this is a different time, you know, we're going to be able to discuss how to engage clients that are working from home. And how do you deal with clients when you're working from home in a time when you don't know how they're feeling.

You're not even sure how you're feeling. It could be excited, scared, fearful. You could have a spouse that's also got anxiety. You're worried about the kids, the mortgage, worried about your job. And so is your client. And that's what this is about. This is about displaying empathy at a time that is most critical. Because if anybody goes into accounts at the moment enforcing legal applications of contracts or trying to stick to strict terms or trying to ram home a sale that you really want to get over the line, because it's going to make you look good, then it's fraught with danger at this particular time. This has always been about the client. I've been talking about authentic selling for a very long time away from all the methodology some of you may be used to, away from the pyramid approach of, you know, opening up a conversation and then presenting your solution, overcoming objections, and then hopefully forecasting and closing a deal.

This is so, so much deeper than that. And now of all times it is the right time to be authentic. Remember the old adage, they don't care how much you know, until they know how much you care. And I want to share with you some key elements of empathy when you're engaging these people. For example, if you're on a video conference or on a phone call, because you do have to pick up the phone, you do have to contact all of your clients and prospects. Those you've been speaking with and find out where they're coming from without an agenda, without a preconceived notion of, well, how am I going to get these figures in, or can we even deliver on the solution that we've been talking about. Now is the time to say, so tell me how you're feeling. Tell me what's going on at your end.

Tell me what is most critical for you to achieve right now? And sometimes the answer will be, they don't know because they've never been through this and sometimes, they will have a very good idea. The worst thing I think we can do right now is impose our own ideas on them and say, well, you know, if I were you, I think you should look at this. Or if I were, you I'd run away for a bit because you're clearly don't have any budget right now. Or I can't deliver that in two weeks. So, there's nothing I can do and getting defensive. It's still amazing how many people take this whole sales relationship business far too personally. It is not personal. The coronavirus is not personal. It's not your fault. It's not the client's fault. It's one of the speed bumps in the way. And so if the client behaves a little differently because they're under stress because they're experiencing difficulty, then that's quite normal actually.

And as a result of that, we need to behave in a way that makes them feel that you understand. This is not the time for pity parties. We're not there to spend hours on the phone discussing sympathetically. Oh... that's really bad. I know three of your staff have just gone and 20 more might be going and having a long discussion about that because, it may sound like something you would do with a friend, but we're there to be an advisor and to talk them through what the options are. We're the ones who have to be positive. And the worst-case scenario is there is nothing we can do. Maybe we can't deliver. Maybe they don't have budget. Maybe they've got other priorities, but the least we can do is explore the conversation with them and allow them to be heard, allow them to express themselves.

But let's focus on the human and how they're feeling without getting down and dirty into a pity party. So tell me what's most critical Mr. Client, tell me what you've thought of to get yourself out of this. What's your plan? If any, to resolve some of these issues. You've known us for two, three, four years now, what do you think we can do? If we could do anything at all, as an organization, what would you like us to do? I don't know if I can do it, I'll go and find out, but I need you to tell me what you need most. And then once you've done that exploratory work and understood where they're coming from, then you can make some reasonable decisions. You can say, how about we look into that? Or how about we drag some money out of what you've already spent, and we shift it into another project. How about I get someone to talk to you to resolve that? So, in four weeks’ time, when things might be a little better, we can get a head start on the next project.

Or how about there's a partner of mine that isn't attached to my company. They'd be a better fit for you right now. And I really strongly suggest that you talk to them because I think they will help you more than I can. That's what authenticity is. And that's the opportunity that you have. In uncertain times, there's a saying that stands very true. The finding of a fact outweighs the feeling of a fear. Many of you will be uncertain about making contact with these people. You may be uncertain about yourself on a video conference or self-conscious, or you're not quite sure whether you can pitch, you know, after you've washed your hands 15 times and use more hand sanitizer than there is champagne at the Melbourne Cup. Do you even have the opportunity to pitch on a video conference in a time like this? But there are going to be opportunities to propose solutions because they're in the client's best interest.

And that's the key. So if you find out what the facts are, regardless of the result, whether you can help them or not, whether you have a reduction in business or an increase in business or simply retain business, you will get peace of mind. You'll know where you stand and that's half the battle with this. So, once you do that, you're able to then move forward in some way. Now it may not be at the pace you're used to, and you may not get the answers that you like sometimes, but you will have clarity. And that will give you the positivity and the strength to keep moving forward throughout this.

If you would like to explore this further, I'm offering video-based coaching for all of my clients. I have six clients right now that, that jump on a video conference with me. And they can discuss live deals. We can discuss pitches and opportunities. And again, I'm not a trained counsellor. I don't sit there with crossed legs and a notebook. I talk about real deals and real pitches. So, if you'd like to book in, then simply connect with me on LinkedIn, Elliot Epstein, or email me at elliote@salientcommunication.com.au.

And if you haven't got budget at the moment and things are tight, I'm still happy to help. So, email me and I'll make every endeavour to help you if that's genuinely the case.

Next episode, I'm going to be discussing with you how to maximize your incumbency. You've got accounts at the moment who like you. Some of which might have been going to tender. Some of which might have had a few rocky days with them as you delivered some things they weren't happy with. And now the game's changed. Now is the time potentially to maximize your incumbency again, because it's in the client's best interest.

So stay tuned, more importantly, stay well, stay positive. Be aware, I washed my hands before I touched this microphone. Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative intro

(Prince Charles):       Hello. It's Charles here. I'm perfectly fine. I'm self-isolating. And thank you for all your kind wishes. I'm very happy because I'm listening to the podcast of Elliot Epstein and I commend it to you. Cheerio.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             In Episode One, we discussed empathy as it underpins everything you do in managing client relationships. So right now, you'll most likely have a bunch of accounts you've had for a while. Some for 12 months, some for maybe five years or even 10 years. You've had a desk in their office, almost certainly had access to a car park. And you know that weird coffee they drink, you know, the regular half strength, cappuccino with organic almond milk and three sugars. But it's still business. And you have the power of incumbency. There are still a lot of people who put way too much store in their personal relationships and feel compelled to concede, especially in times of stress, like right now. However, whilst we should be considerate of the human client live on your computer screen, these are the same people who just weeks ago would have rushed to tender, or played low ball pricing games faster than a trafficker running away from a Wu Han wet market. So because it's still business, you have the option to both help the client empathically and yes, help yourselves with the power of incumbency. Remember, they'd been buying from you for a reason, your stuff works, and it's beneficial to them. A few glitches here in there, a few delivery issues hasn't stopped them from seeing your value. In many respects, the selling is done. So stop selling and start negotiating for the betterment of both parties. Here's a few ideas to leverage your knowledge of your clients. Firstly, talk to your own financial or accounting person. The good news is you'll now probably be on a video conference. So, there won't be any issues about bad breath or questionable body odour. Find out the real financial story on your A, B, C,D accounts.

That's where A's are really profitable ones and D's are the ones you probably should have got rid of a long time ago. Look at the contribution margin from these accounts and then move your eyes across the spreadsheet to your now unused travel and marketing events budgets. You should now have a picture of what kind of dollars may be in the kitty. As counterintuitive as it might sound given your current cash flow may be affected with the virus. Consider offering concession trades. A concession trade is when you only offer something when you receive something back in return. It is not bargaining or simply acquiescing.

Here are the examples.

We'll defer your fees for three months to help you out, if you're happy to just extend the current contract by 12 months. We'll actually credit back that 40k you just spent with us last month because clearly we're both in no shape to deliver it, if we can also agree that the price increase we've been talking about and deferring will take place in January, 2021.

We will ensure you're fully compliant and throw all our experts at you right now, free of charge in the middle of this crisis, if we can agree that the system upgrade we've been talking about forever and putting off can finally be implemented by June, 2021.

I'm sure you're thinking of your own concession trades right now. I call the idea; Give, Give, Take.

Give the client something of real value. Give it to them now when they need it. Take later. It's professional, empathic, and business-like. Your relationship can only be enhanced even if they can't agree. And if they can, you've played both the short game and a long game where everyone wins and equally importantly, you've cut the risk of a client going to tender or becoming unprofitable once

COVID-19 passes into the vaccine field pages of history. Let me share a final story of this from a, non-corporate entity, my gym. I say it's my gym, it's actually my wife's gym. Anyone who knows me understands that a gym is only something I see when I pick her up afterwards to get a coffee. I have done a fair bit of boxing though, I need to keep my skills up when facing the Brown cardigans of procurement. So back to the gym... I'm going to read you their heartfelt email, given as you know, gyms are now shut down. It has great storytelling and a concession trade. Here's the email.

Email:                          " I'm feeling stuck on where to start. I've always maintained collectively, we are the custodians of these baths. Since 1881, passing through two World Wars and the Great Depression, these baths were the only sea baths in Victoria, open all year round, hence the birthplace of winter swimming we have now evolved into Bayside's true home at fitness, lifestyle, wellbeing and community.

I often reflect on how many souls have walked the boards before us. Those who walked the boards and did not return from the war or those that did and used it as a place of respite and self-repair. The many stories laughs and tears that must have been shared over those 139 years. I believe many of the souls are still present and that is part of the magic we all find hard to describe to others. Ironically, we must now all come together again by staying apart. We will all get through this and hopefully be back to our home that the baths have given us soon enough.

Applying the foresight of hindsight, I also realized this experience will bring us closer together. My commitment to the 18 staff, including casuals, personal trainers and permanent class instructors is to continue paying our staff the highest possible percentage of their wage until this crisis is over. With the government top up, I don't want any staff to be out of pocket, regardless of the duration of the crisis. My commitment to the members is to continue to fund all ongoing bills to ensure the venue is protected.

And I'm able to reopen and operate at full capacity immediately when able to do so. To members, to get through this, we're asking members to pay half of their membership fees until the crisis is over. How that looks: Payments are debited once a month, instead of fortnightly starting this Thursday. In return, all existing members will be protected from any future price rises for three years. All existing members at the conclusion of the crisis, should you need to cancel for any reason in the future, the usual 30-day notice period will not apply. And all members will have a fully operational venue with all our staff on return. "

Elliot Epstein:             And then he concludes "Lovingly, [which was interesting] Matthew" Well done, Matthew. He's going to give himself every chance with a concession trade. And so can you.

I'll leave you with this thought. As you know, some people say the glass is half empty or half full. Some people are so paralyzed, they can't even see the glass. Still others complain it should have been a cup of orange juice in the first place. And some professional salespeople pick up the glass with whatever quantity of water is left and go in search of really, really thirsty people.

As Bob Harrington once said, "Nobody became a howling success by just howling".

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. I washed my hands before touching this microphone. Take care of yourselves , till next time .

Creative intro

(Historic video):         1929…the financial house of cards collapses and the overinflated stock market plunges into a Great Depression, a financial panic grips the world. For the majority, it means the interminable line outside factory gates, desperately hoping for a job that rarely comes. It means hunger and the march of the unemployed in the nation's capital. With acute domestic problems, America would now isolate herself more than ever from the international scene. It started in America, but practically overnight an economic blizzard swept the world. In Japan, France, Britain, always the unemployed, the soup kitchens, the grinding poverty and the despair.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That opening clip was from the archives reporting on the Great Depression in 1929. We should be mindful that many people right now have also either been stood down or lost their jobs. And if you're listening, this is not the Great Depression and whilst the world may indeed be different, it will still have opportunity for you. In this episode. I want to discuss the issue of salespeople getting down or dispirited, especially when the only face to face contact you're likely to have is with your dog.

When you're isolated or in a lockdown, it’s natural for people who thrive on client contact to feel out of sorts, out of kilter, or at some level quite stressed. After coaching over 5,000 people who have roles in sales, presales, sales management, as well as entrepreneurs, CEOs, and start-up founders, let me share the core stress behaviours for different types of people and a few ways to overcome them.

Firstly, let's take Mr. & Ms. Ego Head, and I don't mean that in a pejorative way. You love being the centre of attention, giving presentations, feeding off the live buzz in the room. You're used to picking up on the clients clues and body language, and you like telling stories. You typically speak 3000 words in a 30 minute presentation. And if you do that a few times a week, that's around 10,000 words a week, not coming out of your golden mouth. If you're working from home, and the only thing you've said all day is, “Sweetie, please don't wipe Vegemite all over the cat”, you're probably going to get a bit antsy.

The core stress behaviours you might exhibit are blaming yourself for any failure or lack of progress. Being highly self-critical, feeling completely out of whack or desperate, which is no good for any of your clients or colleagues. My recommendations? Keep presenting, master the video conference, put out video blogs or posts on LinkedIn. Make sure you still have a voice out there. And secondly, be kind to yourself. Remember Goodwill Hunting? “It's not your fault. Did you hear me? It's not your fault.”

The second sales personality type is the Sociable Relationship Seller. You love the coffees, the catchups. And now they are all shut off and you can't even talk about the football because there isn't any. You're also probably one of those people that really looks after clients, expedites magical delivery workarounds, like David Copperfield on steroids and you know the system backwards. And now you're stuck online having Friday afternoon drinks in your own kitchen, holding up a glass of wine to the screen, as if that replicates the feeling you have been connected. The only benefit is laughing about Bethany's revolting choice of art on her walls and catching a glimpse of Jason's bong on his bedside table. So, it's disconnecting and stressful.

My recommendations? Group approval is big for you. So initiate projects that require lots of group interaction, it could be new user groups, new groups of colleagues working on different ideas, even reviewing the roles you each play in the team. Maybe it's even time to shake up who looks after different accounts. So, you have some new friends to talk with and get to know. Keep your sociability moving as best you can.

Next is Mr and Ms. Process or Strategy Junkie. You love the CRM more than a Chief Medical Officer loves a scary face at a press conference.       You are analytical, love the sales process and enjoy getting into the detail, plotting your next moves with a specific product line for particular clients. You may also be in presales. The biggest stress factor for you is that you become paralyzed by being disconnected. You may not be able to put all your evidence-based arguments on the table like you normally could on a Monday morning sales meeting. You may become irritated and impatient because you sent a 40-page email to everyone outlining a strategy, an account plan, and no one's read it. And they're not focused enough on a video conference.

My recommendation? Stick to a process regardless of what is going on around you. Now, admittedly, that process may be different now, but you need structure to stay sane. Don't let others drag you away from your tasks, for which you will have multiple lists. And keep strategizing, even if it can't be executed right now, it will help keep you in a good place.

Finally, the 1 Minute Man, which is no reflection on his virility, because it could equally be a woman. You love making decisions in a minute, driving deals, closing, crunching or whatever else you call it in your company. Now the stress builds up because the pace may have changed. What you thought was a done deal now has a cough and a fever and won’t happen till next quarter at best. You may even find yourself becoming more dismissive than a Vegan at a Bunning’s sausage sizzle.

My recommendation? Keep making as many decisions as you can, as often as you can. Try and recognize that a lot of people are going through some very difficult times right now, and you can't control their feelings, but you can listen to them. And by a sheer fluke of irony, listening harder and with intent gives you back that control. So whoever you are in sales, we have enough lockdowns already. Don't lock your own personality down as well.

Stay safe, stay positive. Your ears are safe. Before recording, I dipped the microphone in hand sanitizer. Take care of yourselves…until next time.

Rahm Emanuel:         You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that, it's an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.

Intro:                           So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That opening clip was Rahm Emanuel, former chief of staff to Barack Obama and former long-time mayor of Chicago. No doubt, he borrowed the same quote from wartime hero, Sir Winston Churchill, who in turn most probably repurposed it from none other than the Prince himself, the infamous Niccolò Machiavelli, who said “Never waste the opportunity offered by a good crisis.”

In this episode, we'll discuss why the world has extensively changed forever. And while your role is not going to be the same now, and when we finally allowed to touch another human being, in an appropriate way of course. If you have living grandparents or even a great-grandparent, I hope they're safe and protected right now. No doubt you'll have family stories of them doing quirky things like getting up early to scrape the mould of the cheese, reusing tinfoil, or keeping $500 in the mattress, or even in the undies drawer.

These are all the everlasting behaviours of the trauma of the Great Depression or World War 2. Even when prosperity dawned, and they didn't need to walk an extra kilometre to the cheaper fruit shop, they still did it. Their world had changed so dramatically that there were subconsciously always preparing for its return. Our world has changed. We now know our business plans, earning capacity, leadership behaviours, client relationships are not as fool proof as we might have imagined. In essence, we now have proof we are no longer invincible. Do you think your managers will go back to the same behaviours as pre COVID-19? Do you think your clients will act the same way as they did just a few months ago? Will their budgets be intact? Will yours? Will your targets and commissions be the same? If they are, I'll be more shocked than a premier league player being asked for a 30% pay cut.

What will not change is the adage “Revenue is for vanity; profit is for sanity and cash is reality.” Just this week, a company who was in business for 17 years shut down its entire Australian operation, because all that lay ahead was long streaks of red ink. They might as well have recreated that famous scene from the movie Chopper when Neville Bartos says, “There's no cash here. Here, there's no cash.”

They asked me to advise them once on the pitch strategy, but every suggestion was met with the defence of the immovable. After evaluation of their sales approaches. I said,

One - You're too reliant on your biggest account.

Two - The business value offering is the same as what you were delivering five years ago, not better

Three - Your relationships at C-level are 10% of your engagements. And you rely on your buddies you have in middle management and

Four - The amount of money left on the table by poor negotiation is quite astounding.

It appears all 33 salespeople are offering significant discounts on renewals and maintenance every month. That's an average of 15% less profit on every re-contract of the account. Now I'm lucky most of my clients pay me to tell them the truth, but in this case, I was as popular as a man with a coughing fit on a crowded train. They ran from change faster than morons can pick up a 10 pack of two-ply Kleenex off a supermarket shelf. They wasted their opportunity to get ahead.

So what can you do right now to ensure you don't waste yours, ask yourself who really needs you right now and who is going to need you as soon as the offices and baristas open up again. The important point here is not who might buy your products and services again, but who really desperately urgently needs you. Then move heaven and earth to build the infrastructure, to service the people who will be crying out for you when you deliver it.

Nice to have is now dead. In the words of Monty Python,” It has ceased to be… it is no more, it's expired.” Nice to have is an ex-strategy. Secondly, based on who needs, you target all your energy into marketing and selling to them now. The LinkedIn messages cold calls, referral calls, outbound campaigns, inbound, all of that should be laser focused on companies and industries who need you like SCOMO needs a press conference. And thirdly, use this time to coach your teams. And I mean coach not catch up over a video conference just to see how cute your team's two-year-old is with a face full of peanut butter. It's a skill issue, re-skill them, prepare your people for what is needed now, and in the coming months. It's understandable that you may want to cut people some slack in an uncertain time. But you can carve out some time to say “Right, Wednesday morning, we're all working on our post-Corona pitch” or “Let's look at our fees. What do we charge? Are we charging the right amount? Is there a way we can improve that? Or maybe we can remodel all of our solutions in a sales leadership session to make sure they're really targeted at the people who need us most. “

I can help you, or you can do it yourself, but not to do it is, well….wasteful.

In one of my next episodes, I'm going to talk about this further with Australia's leading futurist Morris Miselowski, who knows exactly what's coming around the corner for all of us in business. So, stay tuned.

I'll leave you with a note. I received from a business development manager who sent this to her sales manager, after he resigned before approving her quarterly commission.

“At first, I was afraid I was petrified, kept thinking I could never live without you by my side. But then I spent so many nights thinking how you did me wrong. And I grew strong and I learned how to get along.”

Thanks for sharing Gloria. I'm sure you will survive.

Stay safe, stay positive. Your ears are safe. I recorded this entire podcast in a hazmat suit. Take care of yourselves till next time.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             In this week's episode, we're going to look at the Future of Sales. The future being an interesting word. Is that the future of tomorrow, next week, next month, next year or beyond? We're going to look at all of those scenarios. I'm delighted to introduce you to Morris Miselowski. Morris and I go a long way back. In fact, we both went to school together all those years ago. Since then, Morris has become a leading global futurist, an expert in his field, who's spoken all over the world about what's coming around the corner in business. In addition to which he's an adjunct research fellow at Griffith University and the only futurist and the first Australian to ever be invited to the Einstein 100 Global Think Tank. So, he's well worth listening to. I, of course, went on to become very tall. Here is my chat with Morris Miselowski on the Future of Sales.

Welcome Morris. It's great to have you as part of Selling in a Time of Corona. And I'm sure my listeners and clients are eagerly awaiting what insights you have, because you can share with sales leaders and sales directors and salespeople, what you think is coming around the corner. So, what's top of mind for you right now?

Morris Miselowski:    Thanks for having me on Elliott. Something that I've wanted to do for a very long period of time. You know, there are so many things that we need to talk about that it's really difficult to prioritize. Firstly, let's just get to the elephant in the room. We all know that we're going through difficult times. This is not a broadcast to talk about them. Let's move on from there and talk about the ramifications of it instead. So to me, it really is a matter of trying to understand as always the implications of what we're facing and the, maybe the short, medium and long term ramifications of it and for selling they’re so vital, because we have gone into the Sci-Fi equivalent of a black hole, we've literally gone into a black space that makes no sense to us.

We can't see clearly and like any good Sci-Fi adventure when we come out of it, at the other end, we've come into a brand-new galaxy. And I think we're exactly at that point where we will move forward five and in some industries, 10 years in the short few months that we have been incarcerated in our homes. And there's so much change that you and I need to talk about and our listeners need to take on board.

Elliot Epstein:             So, what do you think are the major changes that are going to occur for people that are selling professional services and products now that wasn't the case say, a couple of months ago?

Morris Miselowski:    Well, firstly, we're about to, we have lost or about to lose about 12% of businesses will never reopen out of this. Some of those were struggling. Anyway, some of them just couldn't stick around and hibernate and some of those will evolve or implode or do whatever, but they will disappear. That's 275,000 businesses. So the first thing we need to do is to understand our own landscape, look at our database, look at our CRM and figure out who is still around, who is it that wants to buy our product, who wants to buy our services? What do those businesses look like when they come out the other side of this and they will come out of it, very, very different just as we will, their needs will be different. Their approach will be different. Their conversations will be different. The evidence that they're looking for from our salespeople will be different. Everything will be different because this period that we are going through has scarred and changed us.

Elliot Epstein:             I think it's interesting in the light of, a lot of the content that I've been discussing with my clients for almost two decades now, which is about the authentic engagement with a client; stop selling, stop the methodology, stop trying to steer people down a path and become an authentic conversationalist with your clients and remove your agenda is probably never been more relevant than now. And the humanity that you're talking about here is exactly on point with what people are going to be facing, coming out of this. So, at what percentage of those 275,000 are in corporate land, which is where my clients live, as opposed to the restaurant or cafe up the road that unfortunately won't open again.

Morris Miselowski:    It's really hard to be specific on that as much as I'm trying to be. And the reason for that is this is a really lumpy bumpy conversation. We'll need to go through it sector by sector industry, by and ask ourselves either than industry or sector or business that can have survived. Is it an industry that can thrive? And we'll come to those in a couple of moments, because there are industries literally that are booming now. And are there industries that we'll need to reinvent, reinvigorate or do something different in order to survive into tomorrow? But to answer your question, I think what about 50-50? I think we're about 50 of corporate and 50 of mainstream. There will be so much wholesale change that we need to consider.

Elliot Epstein:             So, status quo management of accounts and territory management, just as impossible going forward when we come out of this and come out of the cave. So you mentioned the sectors Morris, I'm sure everyone's keen to know what sectors are booming and going to continue to boom, when we look at market opportunities and what should we avoid and be more clinical and ruthless about?

Morris Miselowski:    First thing is. sales should never be status quo or you preached that day in day out. The reality is that each one of these are individuals. Each one of them has a specific circumstances to that time. This notion that we can do one method of selling or have one note in our sales tool makes no sense whatsoever in the past and will make even less sense now. We will need to adapt and change to every circumstance as we always should have, but proven so now. So, the industries really riding high at the moment that are doing well right now in the middle of all this angst for most of us, things like government-funded services because they need to continue. So, we're seeing lots of industries around health and police and defence and welfare, aged care, even though it has its issues and again looking for innovative answers and solutions.

So, they're out there actively looking for those. They have budget in one way or another. I know it's all tight. It's different. The government's impacted. None of this is the pure conversation, but they are still in there. You've got utilities. We of course need our power, our energy, our internet, the water, waste recycling. Those industries have not stopped. In fact, they've only increased if you take something like health and hygiene, which I think will be an interesting thread of conversation in all of our lives after this, it will impact in every industry, but they are the front runners of it, they being, the water, the waste and the recycling. But for you and I just, as an aside, why I think it's an important issue to bring up is because we've been taught in the last couple of weeks to wash our hands, to be careful of whom we speak to, to be careful of how far away we are from an object or to touch something or to do something.

This is going to leave us really sensitive. We're beginning to question whether things are okay, whether they're, to use your words, whether they're authentic, whether they're healthy, whether we should be engaging with them. And that mindset, which is really Maslow's, one of Maslow's lowest hierarchies, I think is going to kick back in very, very quickly when we get back into whatever normal becomes. Meaning, your people will need, obviously not necessarily to talk about hand sanitizers, but to talk about safety and security as being part of working with them as part of the sales process, as part of being a collaborative partner in that process, it will be about health and safety. I will keep you safe. I will keep you informed. These products are Covid-safe, meaning that it is likely we will see situations like this again. So, we can begin to pre-empt by putting products, services, opportunities in place right now, should it happen again. Those really base, human needs are going to be part of a landscape conversation, at least for the first six months after we escape detention.

Elliot Epstein:             That safety point is excellent. And I think all of us in sales are going to need to look at our value propositions and see where the safety and security of our offering jumps up to near the top when it comes to what it is that we're offering clients and what our benefit statements are going to be. In addition to which, I  shared with a client the other day, that this is going to be a bit like marriage counselling, where, clients and suppliers have been together for a while and they go through a rough patch. And then when you come out the other side, you almost have to learn to re-communicate with each other and not take each other for granted so that you can have a better relationship going forward. And I think the one of the biggest risks nowadays, is to treat clients as if this is just a blip and we'll continue along the same merry way with the same budgets and the same products and the same consumption rate as what's been happening in the past.

And it's simply not the case. We have to see things with fresh eyes and have a look at how we're going to reinvigorate that relationship. And one final point on that is that the essence of what we do with clients has to be done with a new set of evidence and tools, because what you said three months ago might not apply now, in addition to which the person to whom you're speaking with may be very different because people have downsized. I imagine out of all of those businesses, you mentioned that are going by the wayside, there are huge numbers of people that simply won’t have a job. So you might have a different decision maker. And all of that has to be reinvigorated again from scratch as if you haven't met them before. What are your thoughts?

Morris Miselowski:    Absolutely. I would say that was ongoing, even before this, we should never take anyone for granted, but never more so than now. We really do have to start from ground zero. But one of the things that I would urge your listeners to do, and I know because I listened to you, they're doing this, but just want to put a line under it, is we need to be building those relationships right now and not from a sales viewpoint, but from a human kindness viewpoint. Go into our clients, go into those businesses. I'm not talking physically, I'm talking digitally and have the conversations with them about how things are going for them now, as individuals, even if they're home, not able to do their work, go back and reconnect because that's what this time is about. It’s great karma, you know, bank points for later on, but it's also a terrific way to understand what their needs and to begin to give each other hope, hope that we will get back to a normal round of activity.

So, absolutely these are very, very much like marriage counselling and the other end of that, that we will come out of this different human beings with different needs. So we must be sure that the landscape is one that we understand. So we have to make sure that we haven't taken for granted that what was before will be after. Because it won't be. The person is going to be vastly different as well. They will have evolved and changed either dramatically or not because of this period of time, the products and services that they want are going to be changed as well. And likely, very likely the budgets that they have will have changed. There are just so many of those variable landscapes, which is why I think it's imperative we start doing that groundwork right now.

Elliot Epstein:             You mentioned budgets, Morris. It's a really good way as a final topic to address how we go forward with our pitches and presentations and our value propositions. So what are your thoughts on what will happen to clients' budgets? Are they going to have the same budget? Are they going to be severely restricted or is it simply a re-model or restructuring change in the way they finance things? Where do you see the whole budget management taking place?

Morris Miselowski:    I think, well, the answer is the same ones I gave before and that's lumpy and bumpy. It'll be different for every industry. Those industries that are going really well. Now, the governments, utilities, construction, infrastructure, technology, software, the essentials like the groceries, the bottle shops, local manufacturing, mining resources. They will have come through this and their war chest will actually have increased. They will have more money than before. And they'll be looking for different kinds of solutions. They will be looking to ensure that they can again, ride through a COVID like activity. And unfortunately I think it is part of a landscape for us moving forward. So they will have a very, very different conversation. That is industries that have been a bit harder to hit, the tourism ones, the ones, where perhaps they had all this social isolation that just didn't work for them. Those sorts of industries, that of course going to have much smaller budgets.

And they're going to be looking for a very different relationship with you. We also need to be looking at the businesses that will start to come out of this because the other thing I would ask your listeners to do is to begin to think about the industries that will evolve once COVID begins to be relaxed. So, once we are told that there are things that we can do that we couldn't do last week. and again, in a couple of weeks, we'll be told that again and again, industries will begin to flourish and each one of those individual pockets as we open. And we need to figure out which ones of our client base is likely to be in which one of those trenches of activity. For instance, for me, I'm fairly sure that we will see, a re-growth as we have already in online stores and online commerce, I would be getting into those sorts of clients immediately having conversations with them. All the clients that you might have that are providing, working from home services in a myriad of ways are well worth contacting now.

Health and pharmaceuticals. We obviously have a healthcare industry now, that's coping with this crisis, but once we get past that, we're going to have to go back. We're going to have to look at all those elective surgeries, all the things that have been put off or the things that we couldn't go out to buy all the cosmetics, et cetera, that industry's going to come back. Again, go through all your industries and kind of figure out what timing you think when in that next set of activities, when we begin to be released slowly and slowly into the wild, when are they like really come back in and have needs.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, that's an excellent, small but powerful example of re-looking at your prospect list. And you mentioned the CRM earlier, that this is the time to really dig into your CRM and figure out almost from a selfish point of view. So, we talk about being client centric, but there's a time when you need to be selfish and go, “Right, who needs me right now? Who wants me right now? Who can afford me right now?” And if they can't meet those criteria, then there are other ways of helping them. And I still see companies struggling with scaling clients that aren't the right ones for them. Now, now that might sound harsh. But if we're in survival and growth mode, we need to be clinical about where we spend our time and where we spend our resources. And then that leaves us time to go and help people who really want and need our services because they’re on a different trajectory. And that doesn't mean it's a binary decision where you chuck people out and just grow others. But there are going to be some really important criteria that people set that determines where you spend your time. And I think it becomes a negotiation mindset. And negotiation mindset, as opposed to selling says, where are we going to deliver value for both parties? And when you do that, I think everyone wins in the long run.

Morris Miselowski:    The only thing I would add into that Elliot is, I want our listeners to think broader and wider than they did before. There are opportunities now to engage with our clients in the way that we haven't had the opportunity. Collaborations now are working so well. These COVID collaborations. You look at perhaps the takeaway store or the restaurant that's now selling the flour and the tomatoes and all the ingredients that go into making the food they want sold as a finished product. If you go through your industries, is there an opportunity now to collaborate in ways that you didn't do before? Expand your market. Don't just go back into the narrow ways that you once sold, or you once connected with people. It's a terrific opportunity to look at your business models and your pricing models and begin to ponder. Is there another way that I can engage? Because right now people are so open to suggestion. They're so open to a point of difference. They're so open to look at opportunity. This window may not come again.

Elliot Epstein:             You think minds are blown from this, don't you?

Morris Miselowski:    I do. I absolutely do. And it's only because, if we revert back to a child, we are literally now cowering in a corner. We're unsure of what's happening in the outside world. We kind of believe there is one and there will be one. And I totally believe there will be, but we’re never, sure, every moment brings something different. You and I are literally reading the newspaper or listening to the radio or doing whatever we can in each one of those pieces of information is mildly or significantly changing our life.

Elliot Epstein:             That's true. And you think that the decision makers in the coming 6 to 12 months are going to be more open than ever. So, in the past where people have said, “Oh, we don't have the budget. We're not looking at that for another year. We don't have time to transition to a new system, we’re good with our current supplier.” You think all those things are up for grabs now, don't you?

Morris Miselowski:    I do, except not the 6- or 12-month period. I think it's right now. I truly think it's right now. This is, this is the Aladdin's cave door, slowly opening. We're all looking for solutions. We're all willing to have different conversations. We're willing to be human. And we're also willing to be kind. There are lots of things that are taking us back to that human element within each of us, the reason I’m pushing against six or 12 is that human nature is once we get back on the treadmill again, and this is in our rear vision, as much as we think it is or can be, and it begins to normalize, there is strong chance we will revert back to type. So, I think right now, which is why I suggested we should be making those marketing calls, those contact calls, not necessarily from selling, but just from how's life looking for you. And again, spreading the news, spreading the gossip, which is what, which I also think is part of what a salesperson should do. By gossip, I mean, industry information, not about people, but about trends, about what they're seeing. Start to use that as a way to build a really solid base and relationship. And yes, I think now for the next three months or so, there is a golden opportunity to talk differently.

Elliot Epstein:             They’re some fantastic insights Morris. I really appreciate it. And more importantly, I think my clients and, and listeners will appreciate, such great content and, and things and ideas that they can implement now, not just in the future. So, it's been great to catch up with you again. Can we sing Kumbaya or some kind of encouraging song at the end now?

Morris Miselowski:    Well I'm sitting here tuning up for you.

Elliot Epstein:               Thanks. Get your Sitara and I'll join you in a minute. Morris, it’s been fantastic. Thank you again. And we'll see you soon.

Morris Miselowski:    Be safe, be kind and be well, everybody.

Elliot Epstein:             To get in touch with Morris, his email address, morris@businessfuturist.com. Ask him a question, drop him a line, let him know what you think of with what you've just heard. Morris is conducting workshops all across the world with directors and sales directors, leadership teams talking about their sectors and what's coming around the corner. So he's a good guy to get in touch with. Plus, he has a great head for radio.

I'm still running my workshops on sales development, helping people win pitches. So, get in touch, if you'd like me to work with your team and keep those deals coming in.

Remember your ears are safe, Morris and I both wore masks during this entire podcast. Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Billy Connolly - intro: "We want this! And that! We demand a share in that, and most of that. Some of this, and f@%#$kn all of that. Less of that, and more of this and f@%#$kn plenty of this! And another thing, we want it now! I want it yesterday, and I'll want f@%#$kn more tomorrow! And the demands will all be changed then, so f@%#$kn stay awake!"

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That opening clip was either the masterful Billy Connolly or the head of procurement presenting at a tender briefing. Hard to tell, really. In this week's episode, we peer into the Twilight Zone that is the wonderful world of procurement with none other than the master of procurement himself. Paul Rogers. I first met Paul many years ago when I was contacted by a procurement consultancy to train their consultants to present at conferences.

Elliot Epstein:             I had no idea these people existed. I thought a procurement consultant sounded like someone who was an advisor to inexperienced sex workers. After the training, Paul and I kept in touch. We actually became friends. We became a bit like the odd couple of business. He's a Liverpool fan. I'm Leeds United. I'm 193 centimetres tall. He's …  not. And he's coached procurement to negotiate the best deals with suppliers and I've coached sales teams to win profitable deals and often to get around procurement. Ultimately though, we ended up writing a book together, Sales versus Procurement - The Secrets Unveiled at the Negotiation Table, giving both sides of the story in all of its raw, argumentative tactical glory. It's been bought in Spain, Brazil, US, UK, India, Germany, as well as Australia, of course, in Asia Pac. And it was described by a global account manager of DuPont as “The only book of its kind I've found in all my 26 years’ experience selling.” So, Paul and I jumped on a conference recently to discuss how Corona is affecting procurement. Well, naturally, how that in turn affects how you sell to procurement. Here is the smug Liverpool fam himself and I, discussing Brown cardigans procurement and COVID-19.

Hello, Paul. I hope you're well in lockdown wherever you are.

Paul Rogers               Very well, and yourself?

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, very good. And, I’m just thinking, do you have a different brown cardigan for each day?

Paul Rogers:              Well, I have a different pair of white socks for each day, but I tend to reuse the cardigan, minimizing its total cost of ownership and extending its operational life.

Elliot Epstein:             The procurement gene is strong and working well! So, what do you think procurement people are doing right now in lockdown after they've walked the dog and pulled wings off flies?

Paul Rogers:              There are two answers to that because the economy, at least currently, has both the public and private sectors. I think the impact is a little different in each sector, Elliot. So, let's focus on the public sector. In the war time, there was a Ministry of Supply and the task of acquiring goods in particular became critical. And that's what's happening now for many public sector procurement people. They are front and centre in trying to secure things like ventilators and face masks and protective equipment and, means to keep people safe.

So, for those public sector colleagues, there is a crisis mode and they are important. I think in the state that I live in, which is the state of Victoria in Australia, there is actually five streams of the public sector that have been temporarily created. One of which is about supply. So even Andrew Forrest in the private sector, the chairman I think of Fortescue has highlighted the role of procurement in terms of securing goods. I think it was particularly face masks.

Elliot Epstein:             So, he’s been a strong advocate of procurement for some time. So that's a critical, and that's a great role of procurement is performing in public. What about private sector?

Paul Rogers:              I think it depends on the industry, but obviously if you're in travel entertainment, leisure, hotels, you're almost certainly either stood down, possibly with little prospect of being reinstated. But for people who have been stood down, they’re experiencing an uptick in demand for online training and online webinars. So, I think there's no question that some people are using this and forced downtime in order to upskill and develop their capability.

Elliot Epstein:             It's the same for me on the sales front too, with sales training.

Paul Rogers:              Yes. Then the second thing to mention for all procurement people is that, some suppliers are seeking to use the COVID 19 crisis as a means to escape from the contractual obligations using force majeure clauses. And so, dealing with poor performance or not meeting KPIs is an issue because there's a contractual question to be asked, which is, can poor performance be excluded from contractual liability due to a force majeure clause? Is that something you've come across, Elliot?

Elliot Epstein:             Well, I'm hearing the opposite. I'm hearing really lovely people in procurement as saying, “I know we've got a contract to pay you thousands of dollars a month and we agreed to buy 1000 of them, but we can't do that anymore because of COVID and so, stick the contract where the sun doesn't shine, and we'll talk to you again in a few months’ time”, leaving a lot of suppliers who thought they had good relationships, scratching their heads going. “Well, so you're not going to pay me with what we've delivered or you’re going to pay me half because you've got a cashflow problem. And then you're not going to stick to the contract that we signed in January?” And so, they're telling me that they're facing the exact same issue, which is procurement saying, “We're not paying and we're not buying.”

Paul Rogers:              And the interesting thing about those, let's call them disputes. So differences is that they're having to be resolved through indirect communication, whether it's email, phone, or video. And in my professional life, I'm involved in an ongoing negotiation where we're having to use video and it's clearly more effective than email, but, much, much less effective than, face-to-face. So, have you been involved in video negotiations, Elliot?

Elliot Epstein:             Yes. So a lot of the issues that are arising because, and you know, we’ve spoken about this in our book and we've spoken about this in previous videos where a negotiation without face to face, and that is almost touching each other in an appropriate way is a real downer to getting agreement on so many of these factors.

And there's nothing we can do about it other than we need to get on video conferences, at a minimum and we need to do it constantly. The one thing I will say is that the frequency of video conferencing still needs to go up. I know everyone's on it. Some people are even sick of it, talking about it with their own teams, but with clients, you know, if you would make with a client three times a week, then there's nothing wrong with having a video conference three times a week. And that needs to be maintained. On the negotiation front, I think it's important that both sides understand each other a little better. I think sales don't understand the pressure procurement is under, and I don't think procurement understands if they have an obligation to move heaven and earth to try and keep that supply chain happy. What are your thoughts?

Paul Rogers:              Well, I think given what you've said, that procurement has trying to avoid their contractual obligations. And I've said that suppliers are trying to avoid their contractual negotiations. The use of indirect communication does not help rebuild trust. And one of the benefits of face to face contact is that as human beings, trust is built by eye contact. It's built by understanding all of the verbal and nonverbal cues, and it simply cannot be, you cannot build trust by email, or it's much harder by phone. And even with video, it's not as easy. So we're in a situation where parties are breaking their contractual obligations, which clearly undermines trust. And then the means of communication that could rebuild trust face to face contact is being explicitly stopped. So, I think one of the short-term consequences of COVID-19 will be, where relationships have been strong and pre-existing, they will be tested. But it will be very, very difficult to recover from the behaviour of parties during this time.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, that's a very good point. How you behave now, is going to live in the memory of both salespeople and/or procurement for quite some time. So, when we all come out of the Batcave and start to see each other again, if you've behaved poorly during this period, look out! Because there'll be suppliers that will take procurement to task and say, right, you denied us the opportunity of a fair go and we'll go and find someone else. If you're going to behave like that or put the price up, we'll stop giving you the privileges that we've been giving you. And equally procurement will be very harsh on suppliers that are not moving heaven and earth, or at least perceived to be moving heaven and earth to deliver as much as they can. So that's a really good learning, I think for everyone on both sides. What do you think in the short term and the long term, Paul, what do you think the impact will be on the types of people in procurement and how they will behave going forward?

Paul Rogers:              Well, first of all, I think there will be significant reductions in the number of full-time procurement people, Elliot. Especially in the public sector. So, you talked about the downsizing of some procurement departments. If the public sector in particular has a much-reduced revenue base, which it will, and there is more obligation on them to support the broader community because unemployment is high. I would expect the number of full-time staff in the public sector to fall. And procurement is an area that is easily …. as a red line through it because obviously, everybody can do procurement because it's easy, isn't it? I would expect there would be an increase in part-time participants in the procurement process.  And a lot of budget holders will be asked to manage their own procurement processes. And the skill base will become a broader business one, I think unless full time specialist procurement people in the public sector in particular.

Elliot Epstein:             So does that mean if we move to a more decentralized model, if I’m in sales, it's even more important to go and contact all the various stakeholders and  decision makers,  which you and I have spoken about for a while, you know, how I love to get around procurement. And is it now a time where with fewer procurement on the horizon, we're going to be going directly to departments and divisions and decision makers and saying, “Hey, we can help you out.”

Paul Rogers:              I think if you look at some of the supply chains that, that are causing problems right now, it’s, well, that originate, a lot from China. And so if you helicopter up, by optimizing price or low cost and sourcing in a country, which is a totalitarian dictatorship, people have turned a blind eye to, non-price factors and sure to optimize price. So, one of the things that, I think three things will happen in terms of whoever is managing the procurement process. The first is localization or onshoring if you prefer that phrase. So, more and more people will look at their supply chains and say, how much of the value is produced locally. And how much is produced overseas.

And if it is produced overseas, in which countries, does the supply chain originate? So localization is the first issue. The second one is a strengthening of business continuity plans. So, I think salespeople will encounter requests to strengthen force majeure clauses and to provide details of their business continuity plans.  Some procurement people call this supply chain resilience, which is how robust or resilient are their supply chains to exogenous traps, which could be pandemic or,  whether it's tsunami or volcanoes or whatever, how robust is the supply chain. And the last one is I think it's been a wakeup call for many organizations that they have simply no idea how dependent they are on external suppliers. So, most buyers, as you and I have spoken, have grown up in a buyer's market and they've become complacent about the fact that they have more suppliers than demand.  After we emerge from the restructuring of the economy, I've read today that in quarter two in the UK, GDP will fall by more than 30%. Now, if that's the case, merely getting supply is going to be an issue. So in summary, whoever is involved on the client side, their preoccupations will become,  first of all, localization, secondly, strengthening  their contractual safeguards, thirdly, understanding the resilience of the supply chain and fourthly, trying to ensure continuity of supply and support of local suppliers.

Elliot Epstein:             So that's an interesting message for salespeople because there are many opportunities become larger still. The key question, or the sceptic in me would suggest that if a bid is being evaluated based on business continuity and resilience and they are 15% dearer, what will procurement do then?

Paul Rogers:              Well your question presupposes that procurement are the key decision maker and clearly that's just not the case. It's very rarely so. I think to go back to the question that I pose to you,  if you optimize price and you end up sourcing   materials, which are originating in countries that are subject to a higher level of risk,  and suddenly continuity is your primary goal.  Then yes, you would pay a price premium, Elliot. There isn't a simplistic, you know, “we pay 20% more” because it depends on the risk profile of the category. But I think any procurement person who tried to argue that a 10% price premium was worth running a risk on an elevated risk and to continuity performance would soon find that in the current zeitgeist, they were told no in the short term, continuity is important and we'll worry about cost later.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes. And given that there's going to be fewer numbers, they're going to want to hold on to their jobs. So, the last thing that they want to do is not provide quality and reliable solutions to the business and then be seen under threat. Again, I think it's an opportunity to move both parties forward here, where maybe our ultimate goal, which is since we wrote the book to get sales and procurement to understand each other better, maybe one of the unintended consequences of COVID-19 is that could actually happen, because we kind of need each other more. The question is whether people step up to the plate or not, which I guess is my last question, which is, where do you see procurement behaviours with sales in terms of budget management, planning, forecasting collaboration, do you see it changing in the light of what you've just mentioned or do you see there being a lot of resistance still because of old behaviours?

Paul Rogers:              Well you hinted at reciprocity, so I'll tell you a little anecdote. I'm old enough to have been around after 9/11….

Elliot Epstein:             …. was that World War 1?

Both:                           <laughter>

Paul Rogers:              … and I was working with a large airline who had 20, I think it was 28 days cash left in the business. My job was to contact suppliers and say, can you please not insist upon cash with order because yes, we are in trouble because we're not flying anymore. But we actually want you to extend payment terms. And one of the suppliers said, we will give you a discount on price and extension of payment terms, but we wanted 25% discount on our airline tickets!

Paul Rogers:              A quid pro quo! And the fact that I've remembered that from probably October 2001 will tell you that procurement people do remember like elephants, Elliot. They do remember. But it highlights that if you behave poorly, you can't be surprised if the other party remembers that. So I think the things that I would expect procurement people to do is to have a heightened appreciation of suppliers who do provide continuity of performance and I've written down “Better the devil you know”, so  whenever I see a sales training, it always seems to involve a combination of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Dale Carnegie. So, I think the second tier is security, isn't it?

Elliot Epstein:             I think it's coffee now. I think there's WIFI. Wi-Fi is down the bottom, and then above that is coffee. And now above that is video conferencing.

Paul Rogers:              Well, I'll ignore that and say that continuity of supply is a new set of needs for procurement people. And so that is what is going to take priority for them. And so, procurement was trying to do lots of good things, engaging disadvantaged groups in the supply chain, trying to ensure that they behaved in a socially responsible way. And there's actually an international standard for sustainable procurement ISO 20400. One of the things I'd encourage your sales colleagues to do is perhaps look at that ISO 20400. And it's about, what is the agenda of procurement in terms of sustainability and looking forward, that's what procurement people are going to be driven by, which is making their supply chain and their relationships more sustainable. So, the opportunity for incumbent suppliers is to leverage the “Better the devil you know”, and the continuity of support and relationship that they have. And for challengers or those who are not an incumbent supplier, I think the opportunity is to recognize that buyers are going to be desensitized to price. And some of their key criteria will become supply chain resilience to proportion of value that is added domestically, or locally, and the ability to provide a continuity of performance. That's your business continuity management. So if you're not aware of uptime or the proportion of your value, that's added onshore, I would suggest that you looked at those figures in terms of features, and then leverage them as benefits to your clients in terms of reliable, trustworthy, onshore provider who can offer a high level of business continuity.

Elliot Epstein:             They're great points, Paul. And the bottom line of that for me is that safety has just moved up the rung of benefit statements from something that was almost nice to have in the past, to right near the top. Safety of supply chain, safety of performance, safety of handling, safety in security and the knowledge that your data, your systems are kept intact and safety that there is knowledge within the supplier's company that can protect the client both in good times, and in difficult times.

They've been great insights. Paul, maybe our dream of sales and procurement collaborating, as we've become friends, maybe they can become friends. It's still a possibility out there. I know you need to go pick up your dark green cardigan from your dry cleaners now. So, I will let you go. Suffice to say, it's always a pleasure catching up with you. And I, I hope the insights that you shared resonate with my listeners and all sales teams, and there are some great ideas there of where you can start to make a real difference both now, and when we come out of this COVID-19 cover to maximize our relationships with procurement and with the wider business. So, thanks again, Paul. See you soon.

Paul Rogers:             Tara!

Elliot Epstein:           Signing off with “Tara” was Paul's way of saying it's 6:30 already, time to slip into my pyjamas, read a good spreadsheet and get to bed. You can connect with Paul on LinkedIn or email Paul@paulrogers.pro, to share your thoughts or ask him a procurement question. And you can book both of us on your screen to guide your sales team through the negotiation maze of sales and procurement.

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. Paul and I were nine kilometres apart during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative intro -  Kids on Leadership clip

Kid #1:                         Well, I think to be a good leader, you have to be responsible and try to lead the group well.

Kid #2:                        Well I think that a leader has to have an open mind, always has to be able to absorb new ideas.

Kid #3:                        I think of a person who knows what he's doing …. or she.

Kid #4:                        If he, or she says, they'll do something, they'll do it.

Kid #5:                        If someone like thinks up, like want to build a clubhouse, right. And they think they can do it, try to help them.

Kid #6:                        Encourage with imagination. Because if you say, if someone says, “I'm going to build a sandcastle” and you say, “Oh, that could be really big and wonderful. And that might be even as big as the whole beach”, that would make them feel better. And that would make them know that they can do it.

Kid #7:                        And show the people the right ways and lead them. If they're new to the school or something.

Kid #8:                        I will probably choose a person who would not be mean.

Kid #9:                        I think they should take time off to at least listen to the people that they're leading over.

Kid #10                        Well, it's sort of like honour to be like a leader. Cause like, it sort of means that you're pretty important.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             The kids in that opening clip certainly had a good handle on what leadership is all about. In this podcast, I'm delighted to introduce you to the first person in our episodes on sales leaders, the people who are responsible for leading their teams through COVID-19 and beyond. Having coached hundreds of sales directors and CEOs, you wouldn't be surprised to know there is a wide spectrum ranging from the emotionally intelligent achiever for whom people will literally walk over hot coals, through to the narcissistic insecure psychopath, technically known in academic psychology as … an asshole.

Elliot Epstein:             So when you meet someone who is a consistent high achiever, an all-round great guy and described by many in his team as “the best sales leader that I've ever had”, you can't help but want to be around them. My guest today is that guy you want to have a be with, if we ever open up bars and restaurants again. Michael Alp is the VP of Australia, New Zealand for Pure Storage, a company that has disrupted its market going from zero to under $2 billion in less than a dozen years. Michael has had decades of success in the IT industry. Having led teams throughout the Asia Pac region. He's also played representative rugby, he’s highly skilled in martial arts, kayaking and ocean surf skiing. So yes, it makes you feel like you've wasted your life, doesn't it?  I've coached his executive team and a big chunk of the sales and presales team in Singapore and Australia. So I really wanted Michael's insights. Here is my chat with Pure Storage’s Michael Alp on Selling in a Time of Corona.

Hello, Michael, and welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona. It's great to have you on board and given the vast experience you have in the IT industry primarily, I thought it would be good for my clients and listeners to hear a little about what real sales leaders are doing right now in the middle of COVID-19 to cope with all the wonderful worlds of budgets, forecasts, winning deals, managing stuff, and, and all the expectations. So, so tell me what your life looks like right now.

Michael Alp:               Thanks Elliott. Well, my life right now seems to be a sitting behind a camera on a Zoom or GoToMeeting or Teams, or one of the myriad of video conferencing tools that we have at our disposal now, either talking to my own staff, our partners, customers. And I'm starting to really use the digital footprint of what we do in terms of webinars versus real events and other things to try and sort of build business and close business and make sure we're operating the business correctly.

Elliot Epstein:             So, tell me what you're noticing in terms of engagement, is the difference between having a beer or a coffee with a business partner? Because Pure Storage is renowned for being 100% channel focused. Doesn't go direct at all, which is a fairly unique and strong value proposition in the market. So, what's the key difference that you see right now that was not in place a couple of months ago when you could have a beer with someone?

Michael Alp:               I've got a couple of hours back every day, I'm finding. Because I'm not spending much time lounging around in coffee shops, talking shop as we usually do. I must say it's become pretty abrupt sort of a communication. So, to your point, we're not in front of each other a lot of the time, and we're not doing a lot of social niceties, that seems to sort have gone out of the whole curriculum. So it's  become very transactional, but I guess everybody's sort of sitting here waiting for the other shoe to drop as well, which is, you know, how do we just get through the next couple of months and make sure we don't throw the baby out with the bath water in terms of relationships, and getting deals done and  making sure that we're there and present all the time.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes. So, you've got unique experience because when you were running Asia-Pac, you've been through SARS and swine flu in a sales leadership role before. So, what did you learn out of that that perhaps could apply to us?

Michael Alp:               It was really different. I was living in Singapore through SARS and the one thing that never stopped is that we didn't ever really shut down any of the travel. So, we sort of policied out travel. I was working for a large, another American, sort of large IT vendor at the time. And they told us not to travel, but they didn't restrict us at all. So, we were still going into the office every day. But actually, in Singapore, even though it was the hotspot of SARS, Singapore Airlines started offering everybody travel deals because no one was actually that worried about people bringing SARS back to Singapore and Hong Kong. People were more worried about Singapore and the other places exporting it. So, you know, I went off to the Maldives and went surfing for two weeks in the middle of SARS because Singapore Airlines sent me an email at lunchtime saying for $300, there was a return airfare for two to the Maldives. And I didn't have any kids at that stage. I rang up the surf resort and found out everyone's cancelled. So literally that evening my fiancé at the time and I went to the Maldives for two weeks. So, it was much, much less serious than this has been in terms of the shutdown and the actual policy commitments around isolation. So, this one's by far, by far and away the most serious.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes. Now you can't even walk on Bondi beach without getting a fine, right?

Michael Alp:               We can as of yesterday, we've opened up the beaches as you know, in Sydney. So, with any luck, you Victorians will open up the golf courses, which you should do. I don't quite understand how it's possible that Sydney closes the beaches and leaves the golf courses open, and then Melbourne leaves the beaches open and closes the golf courses. It seems like the opposite should be happening to me.

Elliot Epstein:             Well, that's because this is the People's Republic of Victoria,

Michael Alp:               But it would be good to get back in the water. I’ve always said to people that it's highly unlikely to catch coronavirus while I'm getting salt water stuffed up my nose at a high rate of surfing. I think everyone's going to be a little bit more relaxed that they can go for a swim.

Elliot Epstein:             Absolutely. So, when you talk to your sales teams here in Australia, and you also obviously lead the team that looks after the channels, who've got their own principals and directors. So what are your key messages you're giving them?

Michael Alp:               Well, it's an interesting thing is when we're saying we're talking and, you know, again, it's so much on video conferencing and, you know, Zoom especially. And we were a very early adopter of Zoom about four, four and a half years ago. So, we've been set-up around video conferencing right since the inception of the company. We are all extremely used to doing everything on video conferencing. That's quarterly business reviews, account reviews, performance reviews, you know, interviews, client QBRs, executive briefing centre sections. We're often getting some of our best technologists globally, wherever, out of Mountain View on Zoom sessions with customers anyway. And we've been doing that for quite a long time. So, no one's really stressing about not seeing each other. Because it just seems like an extended time working from home and using the tools. And the tools were already very well set up. Our infrastructure, albeit a new company has actually been using tools like Okta and Zoom and Salesforce and Gmail.

It's actually stood up incredibly well under the strain. So, I'm telling them to pick up things and work on things like Sales Navigator from LinkedIn to increase your digital footprint. To use the tools that you all have at your disposal. Do all the things that you’re probably actually not quite doing while you're actually out, telling me you're seeing customers. So all the things that are falling through the cracks before in terms of building contact lists and making sure CRM is right and, you know, really making progress around a lot of that hygiene stuff. Because that in itself actually creates a lot of good quality contacts with customers and partners. So, you know, I've got a couple of quality, quite progressive or aggressive projects around, adopting a couple of new tools around contact information, increasing our CRM database, both in numbers and the quality. And then a whole bunch of executive contacts that we're doing digitally, both through our own work, through using some of the third-party tools and also with our inside sales reps.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So, you're using the time wisely and you’ve thought ahead about how you can cope with a situation like this. In terms of pitching, as you know, I've coached a huge chunk of your team to present the value proposition of Pure and their using this technology to get that message across. What have you noticed if anything that's different, in terms of the way that pitches are presented to either new or existing customers?

Michael Alp:               A lot of the stuff that you and I work on, and we work on with our teams is around  being really authentic, and about making sure that there's a lot of you in the statements, and the people get a strong memory footprint of both the individual and the content. And it's interesting watching people, especially some of the, we've had a lot of technical webinars and a lot of the people you've coached, I've noticed how well they're actually doing it over camera now. And I'm using, I've got two sets of technical specialists, one being sort of more generalists and others being more specialists. And you know, the specialists,  we're getting a lot of attendance to, when we advertise digitally say a particular specialist is going to talk on a topic, because one of the things we've found is that people do have spare time, right?

Michael Alp:               As you know, I mentioned that I'm not spending hours in coffee shops and that customers and our partners the same. Everybody's got a few more hours in the day to go and attend a workshop with someone that's got an impressive CV, that's talking about something that they need to know. But they generally just don't get to it in their workday. But you know, they're home, they've got an hour free in their calendar, they'll come and attend watching, okay, this guy from Pure Storage talking about a specific subject area. It might be, you know, how to optimize large scale VMware implementations for an enterprise customer. These types of specialist topics are getting a fair bit of play. So, we’ve actually got increased numbers of people attending those, which is great. And again, the quality of the presentations has really lifted, you know, thanks to you partly, very, very much, you know, through your coaching.

Michael Alp:               And also because I think people are really thinking about what they can present for maximum impact. So being very mindful of what they're saying and how, and then collating and collecting all the tools. And then they're all very familiar with using Zoom say, how they can use actually multiple windows and sharing their screens. And they're sort of rehearsing and practicing that process to make sure that someone, if someone comes on for a 45-minute webinar, they want to learn something, they really are learning something. They're not just coming on and looking at some blank technology pitch. They're actually engaging with the presenter and actually learning what we're doing or what the possibilities are.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So you’re saying then that your customers are more open now, not just because they've got time, but because obviously they've got a real need to build infrastructure that delivers all the things that is going to keep them on track. And if you're getting more numbers to these webinars and online sessions, that's terrific. And I think it's a great lesson to everyone.

I'm still seeing … while everyone's talking about being on video conferencing, Michael, I'm still seeing people saying people are over at, people are sick of it, you need to be careful about how many times we ask clients to engage with us…. And it's just rubbish. You know, we've got to be on this every day, just as sales activity needs to be done every day. This is the new sales activity for this period of time. And what you've described is proof of exactly that, and I'll be interested to know how C-level has reacted. So, you talked about people not being around and working from home. How has C-level, CIOs, CTOs, how have they responded to this, if any different?

Michael Alp:               Not too bad. I mean, I think the only thing I'd say is that a lot of the C-level people are also involved in coronavirus teams and there's a whole bunch of activity going on around dealing with their own staff and dealing with the own issues. So, there's been some sort of cases of people getting lost in the chaos and there's a couple of customers we have, or potential customers that have really had some challenging IT issues. So, you know, we've watched, what was it, a Queensland e-learning system went down yesterday. And I think we had it in Victoria, last week or wherever it was. There's a lot of these incidents where the infrastructure is actually cracking. So there have been a couple of customers that have gone look, I've got big issues, you know, basically around end-user computing and access points and security and a lot of the front end.

Michael Alp:               We've had a lot of the banks globally, you know, who thought they had great video capability until actually they sent everybody home. And so, I know several global banks that literally just broke their networks and what they thought was good virtual desktop, was terrible. So they've had a lot of, there's been a lot of interesting, quite fast buying, but also a lot of scouring around, but on basic infrastructure things, email, access to systems, a lot of trading systems, security issues, home devices not being capable. So there's been a hell of a lot of end-user compute work. And a lot of our C-level people have really been under the gun to actually make sure that people can operate in this sort of new mode. And I will call it a new mode. Because I think this might be a bit persistent.

Elliot Epstein:             That is the prediction, that it's not going to be over in five minutes. So let me finish off by throwing you a curly one, given your vast experience in the IT industry. You've probably got mates there that you either surf with or occasionally have a lemonade with, that are not in the industry, what would your main advice be to companies where perhaps IT infrastructure is not their thing? That's not what they're selling. And so the demand may not be as strong or there might be some logistical issues. If you think back through all of your sales leadership experience, what would you say to people in a non-booming industry or non-IT, that potentially could help them through this period?

Michael Alp:               I think the main thing is; go and look for the technology software tools to grow your business and to get in contact with people. We use LinkedIn a lot, in terms of actual conversations and finding people. I think there are a lot of tools out there like that, that you can actually go and use either as platforms or third parties to go and create and build business that you didn't have before. And it's a time to do it. Obviously if you're Virgin Airways, you've got some real issues about the cost of your infrastructure. For most people out there, that are trying to maintain a business, I think every customer you get now is worth five next year.

Michael Alp:               And so, I'd say it's a time for investing in your digital growth and on making sure that you can get to decision makers and plant the seeds now for coming out of it. I'd probably think that this mode of working that we're in now, is probably going to be persistent forever. I mean, now that we've worked out that the kids can actually school from home, guess what everybody's going to do? They're going to be saying fine, that clarinet lesson, you can do it from home. I think the same is with work environment. I think we're all going to go, “Oh, we've got used to working at home, we've got infrastructure set up, the offices are better. We've got a better technology. The systems are working.”

Michael Alp:               I think when I say this is a sort of persistent way of working, I think it's beyond the coronavirus. I think this is probably going to change office and office use and tools and attendance forever. And I think people will get much more used to using these types of tools that you we're using today. And I think building some competencies around things like presenting on video, using LinkedIn, using digital contact tools, advertising your profile, learning how to do what you do well through this digital footprint is really important. And so for anybody that's not in the tech industry, I'd say it's a time for you to actually, it's time to take a bit of time and actually see what you can do technically.

Elliot Epstein:                 If you don't do it now, you never will.

Michael Alp:                    That's right. You got time now, you know?

Elliot Epstein:            Yes, that's right. All you can do is get a takeaway coffee and walk the dog a second time.

Michael Alp:               That's right. People not as technically capable as yourself, Elliot, often think that it's probably a bit daunting, but actually I've got quite a few friends with small businesses and others that are just say, you know, the availability and the ease of use of most of these tools to act, to advertise, to contact, to pitch, are so good now . It's really no excuse not to get set up and do it well.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. Michael, thank you for sharing those ideas. I'm not sure if you're going to go out for a surf today because you're probably still restricted.

Michael Alp:               Tomorrow morning, all free! Maroubra and Bronte and Coogee. We're all able to get in the water again.

Elliot Epstein:             The wonderful world of New South Wales. God love you.

Michael Alp:               It’s still summer here, don't forget that!

Elliot Epstein:             Thanks again, Michael. That's been terrific to hear your ideas and your background. And good to see you're doing well, and we'll catch up with you soon.

Michael Alp:               Thanks, Elliot, bye bye.

Elliot Epstein:             See, I told you, Michael will be brilliant. He might be one of the industry's great overachievers, but at least I have more hair than him.

Next episode, I catch up with Rachel Sakurai, GM of Sales for Computershare. One of Australia's greatest homegrown global success stories, as she shares her excellent thoughts on keeping the sales team connected and focused on the right thing … clients.

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe, Michael and I were on separate kayaks during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Simon Sinek - intro:  Leadership is not a rank. Leadership is not a position. Leadership is a decision. Leadership is a choice. It has nothing to do with your position in your organization. If you decide to look after the person to the left of you and look after the person to the right of you, you have become a leader.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             The first voice you heard was Simon Sinek. His content on human connection and leadership is always worth a listen. In this podcast, I’m delighted to introduce you to the second person in our episodes on Sales Leadership, the people who are responsible for leading their teams through COVID-19 and beyond. I first coached Rachel Sakurai when she was a budding relationship manager for Computershare many years ago. Her creativity, determination, smarts, and desire to just have a go has helped her forge brilliant career.

And she's now GM of Sales nationally for this great Australian success story that now dominates the market globally. Rachel has also been a great mentor to other women in business, has led international charity initiatives and has also served on the board of A-League side Brisbane Roar. As a junior soccer coach myself, the strategies of pitching and soccer are extremely alike. Recruit the best players you have, train them well, don't kick your own goals and you can't score unless you dare to take the shot. Rachel wins because she dares to go where others won’t when it comes to the pitch. And she always sees the value in the relationship from the client's perspective, not just her own. Here is my chat with Computershare’s Rachel Sakurai in Selling in a Time of Corona.

Hello, Rachel, it's great to have you on Selling in a Time off Corona. How are things in sunny Queensland?

Rachel Sakurai:          Thank you very much, Elliot. And it's great to be part of it. Queensland is still sunny. Unfortunately, we've had the sunniest weather despite being locked up in isolation.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, not much fun. At least here in Victoria, we've got some average days. So being locked up is not so bad. So given you’re involved in a lot of existing major accounts and looking after business development for Computershare and the great client engagement work that you've done over the years, what are you seeing now within your team firstly, that is different in terms of behaviour compared to a couple of months ago, other than the fact that they physically can't go and meet people. What are you seeing in terms of sales behaviours, same, different or otherwise?

Rachel Sakurai:          Yes, it's a really, really interesting and very, very challenging time for the world of sales, but also just the society and communities in general, Elliot. I think we're seeing a little bit of a change in behaviour on a daily basis with all kinds of financial pressure that our clients and prospects are going through. So, you're seeing a different side of people as they fight for their own financial survival and, and the survival of businesses that they worked so hard to build. And I think now we're at that point where it's starting to become the new normal and everybody's rolling up their sleeves to support each other. And it's the first time in my sales career, I've actually seen a bit of unification between the buyer and the seller working together to solve problems. And I think the good thing through the whole Corona pandemic is the ability to bridge gaps and think about tomorrow and shape a future in a very transparent way, as opposed to a  buyer trying to hold his cards to his chest. I'm seeing a lot more open dialogue, which is really fantastic.

Elliot Epstein:             It is. And it's something that we've desired for a long time. Can you give me an example of where you see a more collaborative approach as opposed to supplier/client relationships, where you've actually sat at the table, open up your cards together and said, right, how do we solve this problem together?

Rachel Sakurai:          I think it's really, really important to first remember that every customer still has needs, they've always had needs and will always have needs. But with COVID, we've seen their emotions play a little bit more of a driving factor when setting their priorities and looking at the way they do business. And, and so most people in the business world, they’ve never experienced a pandemic before. So it's given people the opportunity to sit down and say, you know, I'm scared. I don't know what to do. How can I turn this problem and this challenge into an opportunity? And I think where you're seeing successful business development managers, and sales reps, really shine is where they've managed to show patience, where they’ve managed to show empathy and show some creativity. So, something that you Elliot, taught me a long, long ago in my career was the skills around, I think that the term they used to use back then was active listening.

And I think in these times, it's really, really important that active listening is at the forefront of all communication, because we're not sitting there in front of someone and building the rapport. We don't have the ability to really read body language and feel comfortable and connected in a face to face environment. You know, we really, really need to work so much harder at becoming more effective at keeping our audience attentive and understanding their needs. So that whole skill that you've talked about around attentive listening is really, really crucial. As once your buyer can start feeling a sense of trust and understanding that you genuinely sympathize for their situation and understand where they are, you're going to open up the door for a lot more transparency and cooperation.

Elliot Epstein:             That's true. And look, you can't fake caring. You can't do it generally, and at a time like this. I know you've been exposed in the past to some of the old sales methodologies and things that have been out there for a while about how you steer people down a certain path and use various techniques to put your value proposition forward. And I've been railing against that for two decades. And it's just so crucial now that you either care about the client or you don't. And if you don't, quite frankly, I'm at the stage now in my career of coaching business development, if you don't care now, get out and do something else. Because the clients are too afraid, too emotionally attached to this above, as you said, and they're too invested in what they want to get out of this to have some kind of   smarty pants, sales technique thrown at them. Those days were gone before, and it's even more critical now.

I know that you've been a great listener for a while, and I know that you genuinely care, and you foster that in your own teams as well. And I'd be interested to know,  now that you're on video conferencing and you're not catching up with the team face to face and flying around the universe like you normally do, what are you doing to keep the team engaged and focused on clients and business development?

Rachel Sakurai:          It's a really, really good question. And I don’t think I’ve quite mastered it yet, but it’s really, really challenging to virtually connect and to read the members of your team and members of the market community. So it's really important. I think the number one rule is, and it’s cliché and as silly as it sounds, Elliot, it's really important that when you get out of bed in the morning, you still get dressed for success. It's nothing like putting your sales uniform on and making sure that you're mentally moving into that space, just like a doctor gets up before an operation and puts his lab coat on. You don't want to be performing your operation and your golden robe or your pyjamas. So, the first thing is you’ve got to get out of bed and have that mindset ready for connectivity and engagement. And we've been doing a lot of things with technology, virtual meetings, a lot of webinars, and I'm all for the virtual meeting over audio any day of the week.

And we’ve done some active pitching and presentations through all kinds of technology capabilities recently, which is new to us and very exciting. But we're trying to have a Friday virtual drink session with the sales team and the client relations team to bring everyone together and share stories. turned it into a little bit of fun as well. And we've all become a little bit closer even though we’re not together. You can see that we've really bonded as a team. The other thing that I've suggested we all do and it's worked really well for me, because as you'll appreciate, most people with a sales background will be extroverts and we're not too good at that whole feeling of isolation or being by ourselves and even we get to give our own company as well.

Rachel Sakurai:          So it's really important, I think to have a virtual work buddy that you can hang out with during the day and during the week. So I've got myself, my own little virtual work buddy, who I call several times throughout the day and it just helps you maintain that communication and it helps you feel connected, but it also helps you stay polished and in tune with technology so that you can still socialize and feel like you're out there actively participating. So that's something that my team has adopted, and it's kept us sane. But it's also helped us pick up the phone and try more challenging, different styles of communication and engagement with the wider community. And it's been a great success. We had our first virtual directors' round table on Friday, last week. And despite a few teething problems, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive.

We had a wide demographic of attendees. We had 10 guests on the call that all have board positions, different backgrounds and different levels of capabilities when it came to competencies around using laptops and technologies. And a bit of a funny story out of that Elliot, you know, we spent the first five minutes of everyone going, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you see me, can you see me, how do I move my mouse to turn this on mute?” And once we got through all the tech problems, it was evident that a couple of people didn't quite get the hang of muting. And throughout the call, we had one gentleman, soliciting his wife and telling her that the dog was next to him eating a roll of toilet paper. And we had all kinds of interesting conversations that left pretty much everybody, a little bit more connected and it reminds everyone not to take themselves so seriously. So it's a lot of fun.

Elliot Epstein:             It's true. Yes, I'm hearing stories of nudity. I'm hearing stories of family disputes in the background, of the dog eating something it shouldn't, all sorts of fun stuff. But the beauty of what you just talked about is that we've got to get over any squeamishness about VC and what you're doing is you're using it to keep your own team on track and keep them engaged, and not just for clients as well.

I do want to ask you about clients though. So obviously I'm an advocate for continuing to pitch throughout these times, even though we can't meet people. And I know you've been involved in a couple. So apart from the collaborative approach that you talked about earlier, how are clients approaching you and how are they receiving pitches, especially when you're not an incumbent and it's a potentially new gig? How are they coping with this new pitch without face to face contact?

Rachel Sakurai:          Going back to your initial point about how you genuinely need to care for your customer, that's the first point. So just being able to have your sales rep pick up the phone and touch base from the place of care to start that dialogue and check in, “How are you going during this difficult time?” and genuinely caring about the answer is really the starting point. And we are saying that people, regardless of their role and regardless of their outcome, they’re all craving interaction and they’re all craving connectivity. So, the fact that we are able to demonstrate that it's business as usual, and that we're here to promote certainty and we're here to continue business as usual and have that stability has been really reassuring. And I think from where I sit, we've got a lot of respect from the market where they've realized like, “Hey they aren't stopping selling. And it demonstrates and our systems and our resources and our people have robust and equipped, but more so I think people have really felt the whole sense of “They care enough about me during this time. I must be really, really important”, which they are. I also think it's really, really challenged the way we look at clients because there's a big difference between networking and selling. And there's a big difference to a buyer and a contact. And it's really, really forced us, Elliot, to be more strategic about understanding the major difference in someone who was a buyer and someone who you're trying to sell to. So now, in my opinion, it's the perfect time for us just to strategically sit back and locate those buyers. What is a buyer? A buyer is someone who's actively looking for, or in a real need of a product, service offering or anything of that kind.

So, to be able to identify that need, we need to go back to that point that you've driven home to me year after year after year. And that's that active listening. What can we provide them to improve their business, to improve their quality of life or to solve a major problem they're currently faced with? And if you nail that, it doesn't matter whether you're delivering the message by phone, by email, by text message, by webinar, you've got a very active audience. And I know it sounds very simple, but the approach that we're taking is less to do with product it's less to do with service. It's more to do with who we are dealing with. And that actually requires a lot of focus where you're putting your focus on others and not yourself and not your business. So, it's really looking into the customers or the potential customers, current situation and not yours.

Elliot Epstein:             That's right. And what I like about that is the key point there. And I spoke about this in another podcast where it's time to be clinical about where you spend your time and who you're trying to help. It's almost like a triage situation. So health workers, who we all appreciate right now doing a unbelievable job and they learn to go and help those that need it the most. And, and I think there's a role to be played from sales leaders, especially in this region. They're used to being nice to everybody, trying to keep people happy, trying to keep client relationships smooth, and sometimes being on the wrong end of a negotiation to keep a client happy. I think it's time to be far more clinical as you've alluded to and say, “How can we help you? Are you a buyer or a contact?”

Elliot Epstein:             If you're a buyer, you know, we're here to help you. If you're a contact we'll help you, we'll keep you nice and warm, but we're not going to put all our resources in. And I think that's a really important message for anyone in sales. That is looking at their diary and saying, where am I going to maximize the result that I bring to the table?

That's really great. Rachel, I really appreciate your time in getting out of sunny Queensland, even though you're probably just staring out the window, looking at the sun, not doing anything. I really appreciate your time. I'm sure our listeners will. And thanks again for being part of Selling in a Time of Corona. And I'll catch up with you when I'm allowed to fly up there again.

Rachel Sakurai:          My absolute pleasure. It's been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Elliot. And I look forward to celebrating some success with you soon.

Elliot Epstein:             Thanks, Rachel.

I'm sure you can understand why I've loved coaching Rachel in her career. She's a great talent and a great person. I've also had a work buddy for some time. She's a Groodle. That's golden retriever poodle. I put the headset on her to test every podcast on our walks together. And her opinions of my performance are always very encouraging. Usually requiring me to clean up, as soon as I start speaking.

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. Rachel and I took Trump's advice and injected bleach during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves, until next time.

Malcolm Gladwell:     I arrived at the book idea, because I had done this piece for the New Yorker some years ago called “How David beats Goliath”, about a guy out in California who coached his daughter's 12 year old basketball team, all the way to the national championships, even though they were a group entirely without talent or skill. He did it by, for those of you who are basketball fans, by playing the full court press, every minute of every game. A really, really, really radical form of that full guard press, the most aggressive form you can. And I was, I just thought that story was hilarious. But also really interesting because I loved the way in which he refused to give up. So, he was a guy who knew nothing about basketball, coaching a team of girls without any obvious skills in the area. And the normal response to people in those situations is either to say, it's pointless and lose by 30 points a game. Or to try desperately to play by the rules of everyone else. Like to play the way everyone else is playing and try and catch up, which would be impossible in a season. He chose Option C, which was to hell with it. Let's play in this way, that's so deeply subversive that, you know, the other team isn't going to know what hit them.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That intro was the fascinating Malcolm Gladwell, author of books you've probably read or should read like; Blink, Outliers, The Tipping Point, and his latest, Talking to Strangers. He also has an amazing podcast series worth checking out called Revisionist History, where he takes a new look at things we thought were historically true and flips it on its head. One of his disruptive stories, questions what really might have happened in the famous biblical story of David and Goliath.

Elliot Epstein:             So here's my take on how it directly affects how you might win business during and beyond COVID-19. But before we get to the sales opportunities, let's go back to the 11^th century BC where the Israelite-Philistine rivalry was even greater than that of Trump and Obama. War was declared by each side nominating their greatest warrior to fight Mano a Mano with the victor taking the spoils, and I presume any future TV rights. The Philistines had a Master Chef style competition and selected Goliath, the six-foot nine giant, armoured up with a sword sharp enough to turn his opponent into instant sashimi. The Israelites went into the draft and selected their star young talent, up and coming slinger champion, David. David was 22 years old and had not been wasting his time at Schoolies. He had been using his slinger, not a V-shape slingshot as most believe, but a powerful rock-filled pouch, he deployed for some time to kill animals, threatening his sheep. The story is commonly told is that the gigantic armour-clad Goliath was taken down by one single rock shot from David Slinger in the greatest underdog victory in history until the Mighty Ducks, of course.

Gladwell asks us to reconsider this story with some known facts. Goliath was a true giant. That is someone afflicted with giantism, with medical conditions, including poor vision and poor movement. He would not be able to easily evade a rock being slung at twice the speed of a fastball in baseball. David had been using his sling since he was a kid and had practiced and probably perfected his action more than Michael Jordan shot baskets. The money shot, so to speak was not a fluke. It was the inevitable result of a skilled practitioner against the cumbersome, restricted opponent. So, who was really the underdog?

Fast forward to the year 2020, where we are facing clients who appear huge, insurmountable, armoured up with processes, procurement and incumbent suppliers of the things you sell, but are they? Do they also have poor vision of how to extricate themselves from the ravages of COVID-19? Are they also restricted by tight fitting budgets and limited capacity to move easily?

Elliot Epstein:             More importantly, what are your biggest rocks and what are the skills you can bring to the table immediately that others can't?

Here's some of the rocks you may have that I've seen work exceptionally well in the past.

Number 1 - There is no sales department anymore. It's everyone. The operations manager has contacts, the CEO, the head of delivery or support, the new intern. Everyone. Get together, discuss everyone's connections and build new opportunities together. Without the demarcation of whose account it is, or job titles. There are bound to be untapped prospects among the whole team, prospects who trust someone in your organization. Simply allocate the right people to work together on the right opportunities. It's not weird for your sales director to work with say, your IT manager, or even the intern, and even let him lead the conversation, if the IT manager’s uncle or  previous boss is now a key prospect. Former Prime Minister of India, Indira Gandhi once said “There are two types of people, those who do the work and those you take the credit”. Try to be in the first group. There is less competition there. The only boundaries that should be in place right now, are those restricting people lining up at the coffee shop. Certainly not in prospecting.

Number 2 -  I'm sure you've guessed by now that the underdog in this podcast is the client. The opportunity is ripe right now, to take away the immediate pain with simple, bold statements flung at the right decision makers. The strategy of building up to your argument and slowly presenting a business case is now as valid as Trump's “We wouldn't have all these cases of coronavirus, if we didn't do all this testing”. Genius.

However, when you contact your clients, whether it's LinkedIn, a phone call, Zoom, a walking meeting at the beach, or by air balloon, all you need is one simple, bold outcome-based statement.

Here are some examples:

1 - For a $100,000, we can make you totally legally compliant across the whole company in 12 weeks.

2- If you work with us right now, we have the resources to add 15% margin on every order you get from your customers. We have 70 people available right now. First in best dressed, including 30 who have won awards, working on the biggest transition in corporate history. They're available to you, if you'd like them

3 - With respect, Mr. Customer, you haven't got time to go to tender or RFI. It will cost you about five to 10% of the contract anyway. And about eight weeks to evaluate. We're happy for you to benchmark our pricing based on your previous analytics, but we’re delivering this solution right now for Intergalactic Enterprises in only 4 weeks. And we estimate we saved them $300,000 per quarter, and we can do that for you as well.

So, to all of you Davids, and Davidas, it's time to put on your sandals, walk down the mountain, fling your slingers and create your own history. And finally, to those concerned about client budgets, I'll leave you with the words of William Feather. “A budget tells us what we can’t afford, but it doesn't stop us from buying it.”

Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. I wore full body armour during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative intro

Glengarry Glen Ross

Alec Baldwin:            Let's talk about something important. Put that coffee down. Coffee's for closers only. A, B, C.  A-Always, B-Be, C-Closing. Always be closing, ALWAYS be closing.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             If your face is filled with a smile of familiarity right now, then you clearly already know the beauty of that clip from Glengarry Glen Ross - arguably one of the best sales movies ever made. And I cut the swearing out, which took longer than Australia's been in COVID lockdown. If you haven't seen it, you must be brain dead from watching too much Peppa Pig. Glengarry Glen Ross is guaranteed with a box of homemade organic popcorn on the couch.

But what is closing anyway in the year 2020, and particularly in the context of the coronavirus.

Whilst the old fashioned closes that dominated the sales profession have dissipated, a good thing, given the reputational damage they caused. The pendulum may have swung too far the other way - to a place where sales cycles extend, and the deals aren't closed.

If we open the tobacco-filled pages of crusty old sales closing books, we'd find techniques that were written when Mick Jagger and Keith Richards were still breastfeeding.

For example:

The Alternative close; “So, Mr. Customer, would you like the blue one or the red one?” Who said they were ready to buy anyway?

The Triangulated close; “So does your solution do X?” “Well, if it did Mr. Customer, would you buy it today?” This one is still used by the car industry today without realizing it makes most people want to rush home and have a hot shower to rid themselves of that dirty feeling.

And the ‘No means Yes’ close. That was a doozy, which is phrased as “I can't see any reason why we can't go ahead, can you?” No…. Where it's presumed the client's intellect is a few fries short of a Happy Meal and can't work out what's happening…seriously.

It's no wonder that most of us have moved on from this kind of prescriptive, self-centred, what's the technical term I'm looking for … crap.

Hopefully we've evolved from Neanderthal to Enlightened with the focus of the engagement is the client asking lots of questions, professionally diagnosing real issues and presenting evidence-based solutions that solve their problems.

But, there’s a ‘but’. Sale cycles are extending. COVID-19 has thrown projects into a wild tornado, and we're not sure where they'll land, when the storm settles.

We need to know what deals are on the table. What is still doable, short term and long term. And we need to simply ask for commitment from those that still have rampant need.

Companies are still operating…decisions may be made over Zoom or email collaboration. Budgets may be expanded, retained, or cut, but they're still being managed. As I've mentioned already in this podcast series… people are still buying.

So, let me share with you some ways of confirming next steps with clients. I say that deliberately, because it's not closing in some ancient mythology language. It's just honest and clear communication.

1 - You may have a few recalcitrant prospects who haven't responded or take ages to get back to you for all sorts of reasons.

Send them a text, could be an email, but text is more personal, and it says this; “Hi, John, have you given up on our project?” That's it. Just wait. Chances are they'll get back to you with “I'm so sorry, been snowed under more than a Mount Buller wombat. Let's talk.” Or ‘No, but likely to be next quarter”, or “Budget totally flamed. Sorry. Can't do it right now.” Each response opens the door to continue to clarify the situation. Be it good, bad or indifferent, but you're still talking.

2 - Scarcity. The wonderful professor, Robert Cialdini has written and researched persuasion. And he's done this extensively in his books on influence and they are mandatory reading. And scarcity is one of my favourites of his chapters. In old school Glengarry scenes, people would have made up complete rubbish. Like it's the last one left, when there are a thousand of them sitting in the warehouse, and clients who remember, talk to each other would eventually find out and blast your reputation faster than you can say. Pete Evans, Paleo Bio charger. Today, though, especially since COVID-19, there was a genuine scarcity of resources that should be calmly explained to clients.

For example:

Josh and Kate are coming off another project with ABC bank on the 23rd of June. Would you like us to allocate them to you for your project?

We only have two accredited engineers who can install a solution in the timeframes we've been discussing in the scope. If we work backwards from the August timeframe, as we discussed, we will need to have them committed by June 30, what are your thoughts?

Or it takes six weeks to ramp up and test the solution we've scoped for you. Is there any reason why we couldn't have the briefing and design workshop in the next 10 days?

Scarcity, when true, has to put the client on the spot. They don't owe you a contract, they owe you a position.

Finally, number 3

Ask the client straight out. This skill has been coached more than Trump's script writer. Yet it still doesn't happen enough. And now amidst the turmoil of Corona, it's even more critical. The number one reason salespeople don't ask clients for the order straight out, is fear.

Fear that the client will say no, fear that the client will take offence for some stupid reason, fear that they have pipeline isn't big enough to stand the rejection. Please, get your Lego out, build a bridge and get over it.

Here's the phrasing for asking for the order:

“Would you like to go ahead?”

“Would you like to book dates?”

“Are you happy to get started?”

“Would you like to approve the proof of concept?”

“Shall we get started?”

“Do you want to send me a purchase order?”

After spending 4 million hours on coaching open-ended questions, this is the one skill that is deliberately closed because it works.

As for the pipeline, it's as good as you want it to be.

With that in mind, I'll close. And I'll leave you with the final words of the famous monologue we started with from Glengarry Glen Ross.

Alec Baldwin:             These are the new leads. These are the Glengarry leads. And to you, they're gold. And you don't get them. Why? Because to give them to you, it's just throwing them away. They're for closers.

Elliot Epstein:             Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe. I recorded this entire podcast downtown at Mitch and Murray as a mission of mercy.

Take care of yourselves, until next time.

Creative intro

Song - Kate Turchin: This song is dedicated to my install base, the ones that make me who I am. This goes out to you. [music] When I need someone to listen, and it seems no-one cares at all. When my pipeline's looking slender, I know you'll always take my call. You've put the customer in customer success. Challenge me to be better, hold me to my best. There's nothing I want more than to help you succeed. Call on me any time you need. Hey Mr. Customer, your old friend on the line, remember that last time, we increased your ROI? Well, I've got something that's brand new for you to try, I think you're gonna really like, I think you're gonna really like. So let me help you to help me to help you. And we can win together yes we do.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That intro was the customer success song by Kate Turchin, the ideal lead in to Season Two of Selling in a Time of Corona. Firstly, let me say thank you for the hundreds of likes and comments and thousands of downloads of Season One. It's great to know these ideas have not spoiled your walks, that they've clearly resonated and in many cases have helped you win and retain clients . In Season Two, we'll now be covering more of the voice of the customer, sales coaching under COVID, and a bunch of new topics about professional business development in 2020 and beyond. And we kick off with a real treat. A terrific insight into the world of a C-level executive. The true voice of the customer. My special guest is Andrew Pritchett, Chief Information Officer or CIO for Grant Thornton, respected globally as a major global accounting organization with over 1300 people in Australia, and over 50,000 people globally.

Andrew has over 10 years’ experience as a CIO in professional services firms. So you can imagine how many times he's been pitched at, how many stakeholders he's had to manage and how much change he's seen in that time. He's followed my content for some time, probably to keep up with what you ratbags are up to. And I caught up with him in the middle of running his entire IT operation remotely from his impressive book-lined study at home. Dare I say, the next 27 minutes could change your career. Hello Andrew, and welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona. It's fantastic to have the voice of the customer to kick off Season Two and, some great insights you can share obviously about what it's like for a CIO to handle what's going on in the world and to share some ideas about how the sales profession can handle this so that we can all become better at what we're trying to do. So I'd be interested to kick off with during this time, what have your partners and suppliers done during COVID-19 that's impressed you and helped you?

Andrew Pritchett:     Well, it's interesting. I think the biggest one that the biggest impact we've seen is when they've been really reliable, when we've counted on them, so we're still having deals being done. Like we've still got a business to run. We've still got, lots of things, you know, lots of fires in the iron, you know, irons in the fire. I think the biggest one is when we've actually reached out to them, the ones that have been successful. So this is a downside as well. The ones that have been successful, they've actually been reliable . Where they haven't been reliable, it's sort of just faded away or dropped off into like a black hole. And yeah, I think that, that's it. I think the other one is when they've shown actually an interest, ask how we are going,. In our firm where I work, where our whole firm is on 0.8 now. So on reduced, reduced hours. And, you know, when the people have taken the time to show empathy and get to know and, and maybe make it easy, for us to, you know, by giving us information in a timely fashion and that's been where it's really, you know, we've done really well.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So . You mentioned reliability, Andrew. How do you define reliability in a time like this?

Andrew Pritchett:     It's really interesting. We'll be dealing probably on a weekly basis with maybe a dozen suppliers, you know, rotating different suppliers. You know, we probably have 140 suppliers, I think, in, in our budget. I'm picking up a phone call, you know, and it sounds stupid when we call you, you know, you answer the phone, and then, you know, actually meet the deadline. So like, when you said, you know, we'll look good, or not, we've got something. A good, good example was, laptops early on. You know, this year we're actually ordering a lot of laptops and because of, you know, supply chain issues, we couldn't get them. But even just getting the order in, when we dealt with the person who sells us our devices, you know, it's I should be able to get that back to you by Monday afternoon. And, you know, Monday afternoon would come and you'd either have it, or you'd have some sort of communication explaining the delay, with other, you know, some of our other suppliers we've dealt with all, we should come back to you by Monday afternoon, you know, by Friday, you're following them up. You haven't heard anything. So I don't necessarily think I'd define reliable as you know, execution. Though, that's important, but it's actually almost like reliable communications, just having comfort that I don't have to worry about following them up.

Elliot Epstein:             It's interesting that these are the basics. And sometimes people don't like delivering bad news and there are a number of people in sales that would rather say nothing then pick up the phone and say, Hey, Andrew, I know we said, we'd get back to you on Wednesday. It's not going to happen. The engineer is not available. The stock's not coming in, it's on a boat somewhere, and I'm really sorry, but, that's, that's the truth. And just being comfortable with the truth, regardless of what it is, is so much more valuable because it'd be worth sharing. I mean, what is the impact when you don't know what's going on?

Andrew Pritchett:     And to be honest, it makes me look like a complete idiot. It's basically throwing me under the bus, so I'm having to follow up. So I'll actually, I've got internal stakeholders. So I also have to play sort of a sales role sort of being that I have to communicate to the people that I'm dealing with it, how you, you know, we're looking at getting these laptops, you got a hundred new starters or whatever. You know, we're not going to get them, so we need to have a plan B. So we haven't got a plan B or a contingency. And because I'm relying on something that has come through that, you know, is going to come through that they got, you know, the people who have told me no bad news, as you sort of say, then it really puts egg on my face, you know, really puts the team under stress. You know, worst case is,          we actually then pull the contingency and go to plan B only to find out like a couple of days later, that plan A was ok.

And then we're all running around trying to reset expectations and redoing work. And yeah, so it's, especially in this time where the touch points with the people everyone's working from home, you know, just the, communication's really tough with individuals and everyone's at a highly stressed out, you know, they're at the edge and then you throw a couple of things in, it really breaks down relationships quite easily. I think even more than ever, it's more important to deliver, but everyone understands we're in a global pandemic. It's not like it's not in the news it's but yeah, it's a really interesting, it's really interesting because for me, I'd just prefer to know the bad news and be able to react ,contingency or having you help me with my contingency. And that could be another opportunity, you know?

Elliot Epstein:             Absolutely. People talk about building relationships and all the marketing and sales activities that go into doing that. But I think they underplay how critical what you've just discussed is compared to all the other relationship building activities that people tend to get focused on. So that's a fabulous insight. It leads me to the next question I have about how people are engaging with you, which is, have you found people are pitching to you more, less, or the same during this period?

Andrew Pritchett:     But in preparation for talking to you, I actually spoke to my colleague Carlo and we actually had a good 15 minute conversation about this . Was supposed to be a 30 second question, and we actually, don't know. We think we're getting a lot more email type stuff and a lot more promotional, like promotional pricing on, you know, introductory pricing sort of weird things that really doesn't interest us because having a low three month price during the pandemic doesn't really help us. It's almost worse for us to even to consider a free trial right now or something like that. But besides a couple of our actual supplies, we haven't had that much contact. What we have seen is with seeing vendors coming in other angles, other ways like, a good example is I'll somehow get an email that I may or may not respond.

Andrew Pritchett:     I'm pretty bad at responding to unsolicited emails, but then, you know, within a day they'll have called our CIO or CEO, and then we're having a meeting with them, sort of explaining why I haven't considered product X product Y because the promises, you know, the promises that have been given are quite, attractive right now, like we can help you with your, your room booking, you know, desk booking and then because of COVID, you're going to need to have a, you know, social distancing strategy. We can help you with that. And it's like a lot of it's common sense, but the investment profile , they don't talk about the ROI and the investment profile. And when I point out, yeah, we looked at this, but this is kind of the pricing structure. They're like, you know, the people aren't interested potentially. And what they've done is they've created all this work, but for not much benefit where, you know, so what we're seeing that sort of answers your question, but sort of seeing these weird, like tangents and we were talking about it, I'm like, almost think like, maybe, I mean, you can answer this probably for me it feels like a lot of the sales people are being let go, or aren't there, so other people are taking on their roles and they're trying different approaches. Does that make sense?

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, I get what you're saying. Look, whilst certain industries are obviously dramatically affected and head count has been reduced. If you look at your world in IT primarily, that's not what I'm seeing. And certainly with my clients I'm not seeing a reduction in head count around, sales, pre-sales, in fact, I'm seeing the opposite. I'm seeing more presales resources being hired, project delivery people. I'm seeing people making moves from, you know, seriously good vendors to another seriously good vendor. So, I'm not seeing any downturn in the IT industry because as you know, things like infrastructure, security, are paramount right now, and it's not the only industry that's, that's buoyant, but it's obviously critical given we're all online.

Andrew Pritchett:     So I think it might be the new entrants then like, cause they thought of all these new entrants in the market right now that are trying to capitalize on, on the situation. Does that make sense?

Elliot Epstein:             So the people that are moved, the people that have moved want to make a statement pretty early and they may be going about it in a clumsy fashion because they want to, they want to get their figures in earlier and they've, they've come across to somewhere else on big bucks and they've potentially told their new employer that they've got a great network and they want to make a splash. The other thing though, that you raised, which is interesting is that activity is, is down. So yeah. Yeah. My take on it is that everyone's sitting there flat chat, looking after existing clients, but in terms of new reaching out, I think people have got into their minds that, everyone's got zoom fatigue, everyone's busy. There's already so much to do. I'm already working remotely. I'm coping with the kids and everything else at home.

So if, if I looked at activity generally, and I talked to sales leaders about this, the majority of them would say to me that the activity now is worse than it was because people are unsure about phone calls, texts, video conferences, reaching out. They're worried about being seen as being too pushy sometimes. Or maybe you didn't respond as you said before, because you're flat out. And, and it's one of the things that I've been coaching for years is to overcome selling blocks. And I think one of the COVID selling blocks right now is, surely they're not ready for me right now. So you've got both ends of the scale. You've got the people that are trying to make a splash in a new role or trying to get their figures going hard. And you've got other people that have dropped off and you might be seeing that anomaly.

Andrew Pritchett:     That's what I think you've what you're describing is exactly what we're feeling. This really weird, like new approaches that we haven't heard of before, not new approaches and new people, new new companies approaching us in all different ways and different tangents and our general, the people we have dealt with, we have, you know, apart from maybe one or two companies, we haven't, we just, it's just a void, silence.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah. It's curious. So, what are your expectations if someone's got a new idea, you mentioned that one of your potential suppliers tried to go through C level and then across to you. So what approaches do you think resonate right now?

Andrew Pritchett:     Yeah, I think the ones that actually work, I know this is gonna sound really, I don't, I mean, I don't know how it's going to sound, but like I think some of our suppliers, like when they rang, first thing they do is ask how you are like, instead of, you know, I maybe just check on you, maybe even just check on you that don't have anything to sell. Like, you know, just make sure you're keeping that connection or, you know, not keeping, not being disingenuous, but like actually keeping in touch, with people and sort of saying , hi, how's it going? You know, is there any way I can help, you know, what's, what's going on, as opposed to hey I've got this new product I want to sell, blah, blah, blah. It's actually making sure, you're talking about that, I'm not going to call now block because of COVID.

Andrew Pritchett:     I think one of the things that this is this whole thing, that whole scenario that we're in has done, is raised the profile of mental health, raise the profile of people-to-people sort of connections. So I think that is a really key, I think they should, everyone should feel comfortable just to ring someone up and check on them. And you might find, you know, when that's happened to me, a good example of that is we have a really good , we're a Xerox customer and we have a really, really good relationship with Ricoh. Because our Xerox people barely talk to us and you know, to be honest, I think that the guy that we were dealing with, he's not there anymore. Like, because you know, they've restructured or he left. We don't know why he's not there. So I can't even comment on it. But the Ricoh people, because we're at the end of an eight year contract, the Ricoh people were like keeping in touch, Hey, you know everyone's out of the office, there's not much we can do for a couple of months, but if you need anything, let me know, how can we make it easy for you? Does that make sense?

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah. And obviously given print is way down because there's no one in the office printing. It's interesting. I've heard this from another couple of suppliers that there are those that, that care and show care. And in fact, the first episode of this whole series of Selling in a Time of Corona is called Empathy. Because if you don't have that, and you mean it, then you're just kidding yourselves in terms of longterm relationships.

Andrew Pritchett:     A hundred percent, I think that's right. Well, where we've actually still have existing relationships that has sort of gone on, has definitely been where the people actually, when we call them they actually care that we're actually calling with a problem . But the other couple of things that I thought were, you know, key, you know, what could be a potential. I think people have to be more transparent with their product detail. Like it's always been like quite glossy documentation. And you know, I think what we're finding where we're getting a lot more questions, especially around, I know it may be, it's not COVID related, but it's definitely around cyber security and, and you know, we have to be, my job now is , I'm expected to be both high level and really in the detail. And that is quite difficult for me to do with the time I have.

Andrew Pritchett:     So what's worked really well is when someone's almost spoon fed me the detail. I don't mean like an exact summary. I mean actually, you know, don't even wait for me to ask for an architectural diagram, you know, make sure you've got all your hygiene done and you know, what, you know, ask them, you know, for me, what, what do you need Andrew for us to, what do, what does your company need to understand for us to actually close this deal or whatever. I got, well, I need to get the cloud checklist done. I need to be confident of your architecture and I need to, I need to know your pricing scale or your, you know, your pricing. That's one point I've also wanted to raise. But if I get, if I get a few, if that happens, it makes it really easy for me to have the information and then to have the questions come to me from the people who are my stakeholders and be confident answering. Whereas if I don't, you know, if I can't answer those questions, that the deal just goes nowhere.

Elliot Epstein:             That's a fantastic point. And you know, one of the things that I've been talking about in a lot of my work with sales organizations is to move them from the old style step by step approach, which taught them that you hold back on certain proposals and you ask permission to go to the next phase and all that rubbish that, that I'm sure you've been aware of, to a much more open, authentic, transparent point of view, which is if the client needs it, you're there to help. You're there to advise, it's like your doctor saying to you, listen, what you probably need to do is reduce your blood pressure and then not giving you a prescription for the blood pressure tablets.

Andrew Pritchett:     Yeah, that's exactly what it's was like.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, it's crazy. Right. So the good, the good organizations are doing that. But there is still a bit of work to go for people that want to go step by step and fill in their CRM process. Rather than looking at it from the client's side, which is what you're talking about and understand that from your position, you need that kind of openness and that integrity and that detail to be able to even plan going forward. So that's a fabulous insight, Andrew. In terms of planning, how does the current situation with COVID affect your budgeted implementation schedule going forward?

Andrew Pritchett:     So some things, so for us, we separate two things into two categories, BAU which is business as usual or investment. So business as usual, so you know, I'd probably have to get a, you know, a security penetration test or an ethical hack or something like that. That's probably going to have to happen. It's just like, you know, a business hygiene. So that stuff is probably not that impacted, but there is one, there is one subtle impact on that. I'm thinking investments they're absolutely that's actually a challenge. I would suggest that the approach is different. We're now looking at the approach is probably not, not as traditional , there's more smaller pilots rather than big bang implementations, which means that I think from a sales person's perspective, they've got to, you know, be willing to go, you know what, I'm here for a 12 month deal. Not for three months, I might be, we're looking at one, one of the products we're looking at these for document automation, we're going back and forth sort of saying, you know, it's a big deal, the overall deal. But what we want to do is we want to automate, you know, two or three documents to pilot it, to get people comforted for our business case, because we've got to, you know, real reluctance to, to spend at the moment unless it's proven.

So the only way to prove that is a pilot, that the sales people on the other side, like, well, you know, that's not the way we do it, do it our way or out, you know, or basically, yeah, you have to do it our way. We really want you as a customer, but we're actually not able to accommodate that request. And I think I've got two of those at the moment that are probably going to go like nowhere, because the practical realities are, I have trouble getting funding right now, unless I've got a hundred percent, you know, it's almost like a hundred percent guarantee, you know, that it's going to be a good project.

Andrew Pritchett:     The only way to do that is to shore it up with a pilot. But that, you know, a one month trials, probably not a pilot, the licensing model doesn't work. So, you know, so the way we approach it is we sort of say, we'll pay for the services, but for the software, we want to only pay for the 10 users. Yeah but you've got a hundred users, again, eventually we'll probably have 500 users. You're right. But we can limit it to 10 users, but..., they've got a real reluctance to do that. But then that means the foot's not in the door. If that makes sense, Elliot.

Elliot Epstein:             A hundred percent, it baffles me why so many sales organizations are so inflexible. I understand to some extent some of the multinationals because of the rigidity of some of the multinationals, especially US-based companies that might have imposed the way certain things have to happen. And they can't do that in Australia. However, I've been talking about this with pitches for years, which is if you can't schedule, plan, design, craft a proposal on a solution that suits what the customer wants, then what are you doing? You can't just walk in with one flavor of yogurt and say, that's it. If you don't like vanilla, what's wrong with you. And then still spend time on that deal and wonder why it's spinning its wheels and sitting in the sales cycle for six or nine months. It's just madness. And the companies that get that flexibility are doing well.

And I know many organizations that have, and I refuse to use the word 'pivoted' that have recrafted the way that they go to market with proofs of concept, with pricing schedules with the way designs are done, the way things are cut instead of three year contracts might be two year contracts or whatever the flexibility needs to be. And what you've just highlighted there is, is a fabulous insight for anyone listening, no matter what industry you're in, which is if you've deeply understood and diagnosed the situation, you built a relationship with the client, it's your job on the sales side to craft something that is going to help that decision maker get a result for their organization. It's not your job to just ram a widget down their throats, or if you can't do it for whatever reason, because you've got strict rules that stop you from doing it, tell the customer and move on to someone else. It's that simple.

Andrew Pritchett:     Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. I think the only other thing I can think of around what may have affected, my implementation and budgeting is absolute cashflow sensitivity. So that also goes back to, you know, almost having the flexibility. A lot of the vendors want 12 months upfront. And for me to get that through as a business charter right now, really challenging. Whereas if I just said, we'll try it for the first 12 months or 18 months, we're going to charge you month by month

Like that's almost doable in nearly every situation, but even having that conversation with the vendors so far, but mainly for software, having those conversations just hit roadblock every time. Now we don't do it that way. You know, I can get, I can get this through if you can do it month by month, NO!

Elliot Epstein:             It's astounding, isn't it. And at the end of the day, all that happens is you don't get a product that might help you in your business and they don't get the revenue. So it's just crazy. Andrew, this has been truly wonderful. I really appreciate you spending some time with me on this because your insights have been terrific. I know I need to let you go now, but thank you for being a part of Selling in a Time of Corona. I've really, really enjoyed this.

Andrew Pritchett:     I really appreciate the opportunity, Elliott.

Elliot Epstein:             Thanks, Andrew.

Now I thought ahead, in case you want to take advantage of his generosity in sharing his insights. The last thing we want is for him to be inundated with requests for meetings because your pipeline is shallower than the Victorian branch stacking ethics committee. So I asked him to record a very clear message to anyone who's on the make.

Creative outro:          I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills skills. Skills I have acquired a for a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. I will look for you. I will find you. And I WILL kill you.

Elliot Epstein:             Stay safe, stay positive. Remember your ears are safe, Andrew and I were 20 gigabytes apart during this entire podcast. Take care of yourselves ..... until next time.

Creative introduction - satirical skit  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C82sJXfAJeE&t=51s)

The Polk - Alison

Can you answer my request to join my network on LinkedIn? My invitation is awaiting your response.

The Polk - Peter

Ali... Alison, is it? Yeah, I'm not on LinkedIn. Are you okay?

The Polk - Alison

Not really. Peter. It's been 12 long hours now and it's almost like you didn't get my 7 emails.

The Polk - Peter

Alison, uhm....well, we were in a book group eight years ago. If I'm honest, I'd sort of forgotten you existed.

The Polk - Alison

Well, I'm forgetting Peter, because it's looking pretty good for me right now. I've got a new job and I’m a freelance/executive/dreamer ! We should do business work together to create leads.

The Polk - Peter

What do you mean... 'create leads'? I'm a nurse. I've got to go!

Elliot Epstein - intro: So someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             The satirical team at The Polk, put that opening piece together, reflecting the love/hate relationship we sometimes have with LinkedIn. In my research with sales directors and salespeople. Here's some figures I made up. Actually, it's based on asking everyone I coach about the usage of LinkedIn. Amazingly 10% of salespeople are either not on LinkedIn or don't use it at all to reach out to existing or new clients. They also post no content on their company's services. About 70% of you use LinkedIn regularly, which is great, but only 5% reach out to new clients every single day, which is what it takes nowadays. Finally, just under 30% of sales people, post articles, videos, case studies and announcements, and only 2% post their own personal take on business and their individual insights building their profile. In this episode, we discuss how critical LinkedIn is in the COVID world with my special guest, a LinkedIn expert, Nathanial Bibby ranked, number one in the Asia Pacific region on the Social Media Institute's, Top LinkedIn Marketers list. And he won Best Use of LinkedIn at the Social Media Marketing Awards 2019. From his safe haven in Western Australia, far away from our Victorian germs, we discuss how crucial LinkedIn content is right now and how you can implement it or expand on what you're already doing now. This is COVID Content is King.

Elliot Epstein:             Nathanial, great to have you as part of Selling in a Time of Corona. I imagined you're rushed off your feet right now, given the interest and the demand in all thing’s social media and especially LinkedIn. How are things Everything's going fantastic. Thanks for having me Elliot.

Elliot Epstein:             Great. So my clients and listeners in the wonderful world of corporate sales, are pretty familiar with LinkedIn, you know, the basics of have been done to a large extent, some are better than others, but you have the profile set, the photos set, the recommendations are building, they're posting more regularly. And I guess the key questions that are coming up now is we're in the middle of a bit of zoom fatigue and potentially invite fatigue. So, what are you seeing right now in terms of practically using LinkedIn, that is the next level or the next generation of behaviour that's garnering results?

Nathanial Bibby:        Great question. Well, it's interesting that during COVID we've seen the amount of people spending time on LinkedIn has well went up 30% within the first couple of weeks of COVID happening. And it was already on a trend upwards. So, in the last year we've seen, session time triple. So, people are spending three times as much time on the platform. It was always, it was originally, I remember it, you know, there was only 200 content creators and it was just sort of used as a Rolodex to connect with people, send them messages, set appointments. And I think it's at that point now where it's evolving into a content platform. So, it's a great tactic to grow your network with a really targeted group of people, because, you know, as you connect with people and invite them to join your network, they do become part of your audience.

Nathanial Bibby:        But I think now for time that you want to shift towards posting content on LinkedIn and building your brand on the platform. And what I love about LinkedIn at the moment as opposed to so many other platforms is you can still get a huge amount of organic reach from an individual's personal profile. So, you know, building relationships, you know, it does involve having a personal brand, whether it, you know, your personal brand leads the forefront of your organization's marketing or not. I think we all have a personal brand, anyone in sales,

Nathanial Bibby:        you know, does have a personal brand and you can build a relationship one to many. So yes, I think, building a network is, is a fantastic thing to do. And I do think that setting appointments with people that, you know, know the same people you do, and you've got a reason for reaching out to find out if they've got the problem that you solve is definitely worth doing. But I think, you know, even more so than ever content is becoming a huge play on LinkedIn as a way to build your value, build relationships, show people that, you know, understand what they're going through, understand their problem and know, and I've found that, you know, if you post the right kind of content, not only do you get engagement, but you get a lot of private messages from people who want to do business. So, I think that that's something that your audience might want to consider looking into.

Elliot Epstein:             So, let's explore that because it's a really interesting point about content. So traditionally content was created by people like you and I, so we're experts in our field and when we post our ideas and blog articles and videos and all of that. And one of the reasons that a number of people in sales have said that they haven't posted that. And there are a few of them, but one of the key ones is the corporate rules about who can post what, and what's approved by the powers of head office. So, in terms of case studies, marketing, even one-minute videos from sales directors or salespeople about the latest iteration of their services, successes and all of that, where do you see the rules applying now? And do you see any kind of easing of that so that there can be more content put out by sales?

Nathanial Bibby:        Yeah, that's a really good point. That's a lot of that, that I come across as well. I think it’s; you know, the forward-thinking organizations are really making it very clear what their social media policy is to their team members. Because at the end of the day, if they know where the boundaries are, it gives them a confidence to be able to post content. So, I think if the organization doesn't have a clearly mapped out social media policy it leaves a lot of subjectivity, a lot of people have opinions. And it's one of those things where, you know, it's very easy to criticize somebody for saying one thing, for a number of reasons, you know, maybe they're not confident that they could do the same thing. So, it's easy to put someone else down or, or they've got their own opinions about what's okay

Nathanial Bibby:        on social media and what's not. So I do think that it, you know, if you're in sales or you're in marketing, it really pays to try and do your best to influence the decision makers, to put something in places that not only says, you know, what you can do, but what you can't do as well, so that everybody knows where they stand and then you, and they give them the freedom and the encouragement to share content. So I think that's really important, obviously if you're in an organization which isn't forward thinking, then you have to look at where you can, what you can do within the boundaries of, without risking your role, I guess. I mean, this is something that a lot of people have trouble with, and you know, if you are, if you are already in the job market, or I think, you know, looking for an organization that has, it is forward thinking, it has a social media policy that is pushing content out, that they can empower their team members with. And, you know, that's a really empowering tool for an individual salesperson to have at their disposal. Obviously, you and I, you know, we've, we run small businesses at the end of the day, it's up to us, what we think is, okay. So, it does make it a lot easier for us to have that creative freedom. I mean, there's no easy answer, really. You've just got to do what you can to be able to work within the boundaries that you've got.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah. I think that marketing plays a role. It's a double-edged sword. So, I think marketing is responsible in a lot of organizations for the development of content, whether that be video or articles or case studies. But I think they control it too much. So, people in marketing might not like this, I think it's far too controlled about what you can put out there. And one of the areas that I test the boundaries on with a lot of sales organizations is ... do you have the ability to put out something of your own with a client? So, you know, you and I both know that evidence is critical in LinkedIn, and yet I still don't see a lot of, here's a sales guy or a presales person, and he or she is sitting right next to a client over a zoom conference, which is easy to do nowadays. Or if you do catch up at a coffee shop amongst 10 other friendly people, then you could certainly do it just on an iPhone and take a video and post that, that client-oriented voice, still doesn't seem to be out there a lot. What are your thoughts about that?

Nathanial Bibby:        Yeah, I agree with you. You know, it is interesting because, you know, the challenge is also the opportunity, the fact that you don't see much of it means that, you know, the guys that do it will find that they, they do a lot better with their LinkedIn. I mean, we've had, there's a lot of big research, LinkedIn have done that, you know, explained that the star, the top performing salespeople, you know, are active on social media, they're out doing these things, but they are few and far between, part of it's to do with regulation. But a lot of it's just to do with mindset. And you know, a lot of people are worried not only what their boss might think, but also what their other clients might think. What their friends might think. And so it's easier just to not do it.

Nathanial Bibby:        I think another creative way that you can share client stories is to celebrate their wins. So, like I did some capital raising for a company that developed e-bikes and they were looking to raise a million dollars in five weeks, and they managed to achieve the goal. LinkedIn was a part of the fundraising, marketing campaign. It wasn't the only part of it, but when they reached the goal, you know, I posted a photograph of me with some of the directors and just, you know, say, congratulations, achieve your goal a million dollars in five weeks, what a privilege to be part of it. And, you know, quick, you know, send it, it basically just praising the client. And then I've got, you know, somewhere between 40 to 60 inbound messages off the back of that from start-ups. And we're looking to raise capital saying, 'Hey, could you do a campaign for us?' So, there was not really any selling in the post. All I was doing was praising the client, but, I think when you focus on the client, you can, you can sort of sell yourself without, the, I don't know, the ego attached to it, I guess, without looking like you're boasting too much. So, there are creative ways that you can do without necessarily having the client there to speak about their results themselves. You can, you can do it in creative other ways as well.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, that's a great story. So, the other question that begs is frequency. So, I think we're talking about, about reticence, hesitancy, squeamishness and the horse has bolted, right? So being on LinkedIn and using content, not just messaging is critical. And so the frequency issue comes in where people are, if they're not worried about their own boss or their client, putting a voice out there on their behalf, they're more worried about, well, am I posting too much because I do it daily, weekly fortnightly, how can I get more content? How can I produce my own? I'm just one account manager or sales director in an organization. So, would be interesting to know your thoughts, because as you can imagine, I've been encouraging them simply to get over it and get on it because other people in your market are doing it. So perhaps you can share your ideas about that mindset.

Nathanial Bibby:        Absolutely. So, frequency is something that it's, it's important, but consistency is, really the most important thing. And so, giving your audience an idea of, an idea of what to expect and then, and then being consistent with it. So, whether it's daily, whether it's weekly, you know, being consistent. And I think coming up with content ideas on, you know, every few days can be quite challenging for people, especially if they don't build a library of content in advance. So, what I generally suggest, and what I've done, is create these pillars of content, where you constantly, don't have to think up new ideas. So, for example, like I have a series called 'Ask Nat' where people share their questions and it doesn't really matter what channel that comes through as long as they use the hashtag. And then I can create videos answering those questions.

Nathanial Bibby:        Another series is 'LinkedIn Heroes', where I interviewed different entrepreneurs that are making an impact. And so, I've constantly got those coming through. I don't have to constantly come up with ideas and those 'LinkedIn Heroes' episodes were originally just a 10-minute interview, which I've posted once. And now I'm finding that, you know, if I, if I split it up into, you know, a minute or two-minute-long videos, that's enough content to post for several weeks. If you ask questions which, you know, create engaging content, then you can, you know, post what are too many videos. Because the stats are that in 10 seconds, if somebody bothers to press play, within 10 seconds, on average, 50% of people are not listening anymore. So, you've got to look at the first 10 seconds and say, well, am I losing people already? And then within a minute, 80% of listeners have gone.

Nathanial Bibby:        Um, so you really want to get straight to the point, keep it short. Each piece of content only really needs to cover one point. And then you can kind of fill in the gaps with things like quotes, even just for, you know, professional photographs of you, you know, out and about doing what you do. Anything that drives, connections through common human emotions. Cause at the end of the day, each post doesn't have to sell, all it has to do is build likeability and trust so that people will likely do business with you than the next person. If they like you and they trust you, then when they decide that they have a need or they, you know, they have a problem that needs to be solved, you're the choice that will spring to mind. And that's really what we're trying to achieve with social media.

Elliot Epstein:             I think right now we're in the middle of COVID-19, there's, there's a lot of articles about things like zoom fatigue, or mindset, working from home. There's all of that. What I don't see enough of is how your particular or the clients of this case, my clients and your particular services are helping people in COVID-19. It's still a bit generic. And then it's tacked on at the end as if it's like, here's our normal product, here's our normal service, and by the way, this is kind of helping people cause we're still delivering it, amid COVID-19. I think there's a huge opportunity for people to say, well, we know what you're going through. We know how difficult it is, you've got onsite issues. You've got staff not being there. Here, here is how we are demonstrably improving businesses, right in the middle of COVID-19 and here's how are we going to help you as you come out of COVID-19 so that you can get a better result.

Nathanial Bibby:        Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's a very different landscape now to what it was, or at least, you know, in Western Australia where, you know, we've had a lot of restrictions, lifted. People are, you know, going out to dinner again. It's a completely different feel around town. So the mindset of business owners is like, okay, we're on the way out of it now, how do we, how do we plan, so that our brand is strong on the other side, rather than, you know, being in reactive mode where they're dealing with prices, is it losing clients? You know, and they're not quite sure what the impact is going to be. So, I mean, I'm in a, you know, I've always believed that social media and digital marketing and even, sales through the likes of zoom has been something that we've been focusing on anyway.

Nathanial Bibby:        So, it's just really driven forward the future, which we were sort of moving towards this model anyway, but now people are starting to realize how important it is and jump on. And I think that, you know, businesses in other sectors, whether it be management consulting, or what have you, they really need to think about what are the challenges that people are facing at the moment. Like for example, managing a remote workforce for example, is something that a lot of organizations aren't used to and now it's when, when they need services like that. So, I think content that leads with the immediate problem that the target audiences are dealing with is immediately going to capture people's attention. So, I think it's really important that, you know, you incorporate what your audience is going through, the challenges that they're having at the moment, because there's a lot of them are, you know, they're losing, they've lost a lot of clients.

Nathanial Bibby:        They're, you know, they're really concerned about how they're going to continue with that business model. And unfortunately, like a lot of businesspeople have a bias to what has worked in the past, you know? So, the truth is like for a long time, the old way of doing things has not been effective. It's been on its way out. And now it's truly like, you know, you can't do things the same way as you did before. So business is being forced to adapt, and I think they need all the help they can get. It's interesting, like a lot the clients we have, you know, some of them lost literally every single client they had. And I say to them, well, is it, you know, is it a good time to be continuing with the lead generation on LinkedIn? And they go, well, absolutely, it's more important than ever, you know, so this is the one area where they're not cancelling their expenses and trimming down on it. It's an area which they've decided to keep going. And I commend them for that because that brand will be so much stronger out on the other side. You know, anyone that's in your audience, if they see that during COVID, everything just stopped, it doesn't do much to build trust with that audience. Whereas if you've been consistent and kept adding value, regardless of the fact that you might be struggling, I think that really does wonders for your brand.

Elliot Epstein:             Absolutely. So 'Content is King' has been around for a while and now I think it's 'Content is Critical' because it's actually lifeblood to people's success and survival in many cases. Nathanial, that's been terrific. Thank you so much for joining me on Selling in Time of Corona. I think especially those ideas about how we could navigate getting content up and getting it done consistently are going to be really important messages for a lot of people, because unlike you in Western Australia, swanning around on the river, eating dinner with friends, those of us on the East coast, especially, you know, with Victorian germs lie down here in the South. We're not looking forward to anything particularly attractive for a while, but you're absolutely right. We need to be planning right now as if we were out of it or else, we'll be behind the eight ball when that does happen. So, thank you again for joining me. I really appreciate it, on behalf of everyone. And we'll look forward to speaking with you again.

Nathanial Bibby:        Anytime. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Elliot Epstein:             Bye Nathanial.

So, what are you doing listening to me? Get off this podcast, zoom over to marketing and say, 'G'day...I'm not content with our content', or better still get your phone off Words with Friends and in front of a client who's got friends. It's time for you to be the star of the show.

Stay safe, stay positive.

Remember your ears are safe.

I accepted Nathanial's recommendation to be three and a half thousand kilometres apart during this entire podcast, take care of yourselves until next time.

Creative intro ( satirical)

Meditation leader:     Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Allow yourself to simply relax as you take a
nice deep breath in, and breathe out  - all the bullshit of the day. Take another deep breath, Feel your shoulders, just chilling the f#%@k out.  Letting go. Taking another deep breath in. Imagine breathing in white light. Let all the f#%@king nonsense from the external world drift the f#%@k out of your consciousness, far, far, away.

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             That intro is going to set the tone for this podcast. If that kind of inner peace music does it for you, then by all means, go make a decaf chai latte, polish your wind chimes in your organic wicker chair and feel free to delete this podcast before you relax in your hemp activewear.

Now, if you're still listening, then let's discuss for real what's going on right now and what we can do about it.

There was a huge reaction recently to my LinkedIn post, which simply said this:

‘If I see one more trite Pollyanna piece about how the sun will come out tomorrow after Lockdown #2, I'll need a new screen.
Nobody went to pandemic school. Can we please acknowledge the truth - it's not fun for a lot of people, especially certain businesses.
We do have to persevere though - adding 'behind target' to the lists of angst will not help. Please reach out to clients, especially those that need you and don't withdraw activity just because it's hard’

I think it resonated because you are likely to be in Melbourne, Sydney, the US, Singapore, UK or Israel and are either locked down again or may very well be very soon.

That is why the ‘happy pants, the world is a wonderful place, keep calm platitude junkies and breathe brigade’ pisses me off so much.

Here are a few of the examples from these mouth breathers, word for word off LinkedIn – you might need a drink for this:

‘Stories do not have inherent meaning, we have to give the story the meaning and the same thing applies to our lives.’

‘Life is the story that you tell yourself. That’s been building for a long time. But what we don’t talk about is what happens when the story goes wrong? ‘

‘Everybody goes through these breaches, these chutes. I call them ‘life quakes’. The act of getting unstuck, of getting back on track.’

I’m sure that’s hugely valuable to someone struggling to pay a mortgage, home schooling right now, or keeping kids in their preferred school whilst trying to meet next quarter’s budget.

The truth is Lockdowns are knocking people and businesses around and that includes a lot of people who sell things for a living.

Selling is like shaving, if you don’t do it every day, you begin to look homeless. And since waxing salons shut down, that applies to men and women.

In Series one, Episode 2 of this podcast, Sales in Lockdown, I discussed a number of ways to keep being yourself as you navigate the sales world like a sailor with half a yacht missing.

We now need to reassess again where we’re at and what we can do.

Here’s my take:

Governments are winging it – former Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said this week that they ran war game exercises on a pandemic response when she was in politics. How long did they devote to these critical exercises? One day. I’ve spent longer than that coaching leaders to present at a boring international conference on the Critical Importance of Actuaries and it took me a week just to toilet train my dog – and she’s smart.

Managers are winging it – which direction should they head, is the company safe, do they keep people, hire people, let them go, jump ship, tough it out or go easy on people – these are not binary decisions.

Clients are winging it – do they keep their jobs, how do they deliver value back to the business, is their industry ok or not, do they go for innovative solutions or stick with incumbents, how do they plan for the next round of contract renewals, how will they deliver with cash flow restrictions?

So, this can all be summed up with ‘We’re blindfolded, we don’t know if we’re going in the right direction and if you’re feeling a little anxious, please know…so is everyone’

Even regional tourist operators who were begging for customers a month ago are now putting up social media posts saying ‘Stay the absolute <beep> away.’

Before we pivot, innovate, change tack, disrupt, apply blue sky thinking, realign – excuse me while I wipe this fluff from my mouth <blow> – fur ball, let’s bring this right back to the raw, core fundamentals of business.

Why? Because we still have to keep selling and winning clients. There just is no alternative other than giving up – and that is what some people are already feeling. Please don’t.

Let’s go right back to Core Business Principle #1: The purpose of business is to create a customer. The legendary Peter Drucker said that, Do you know when? 1954. The year Eisenhower was US President, Robert Menzies was Prime Minister and Elvis Presley began his music career.

It sounds more obvious than the mask half falling off your face.

But there are still a lot of companies grimly holding on to the notion that their business exists for other purposes such as:

Promulgating their particular special sauce of a solution

Promoting the way they want to sell, rather than how the client wants to buy.

Making decisions that are likely to benefit their own company, not the client’s.

News flash: In the middle of Covid-19, the client does not exist to help you survive. You exist to help them survive and thrive. Period.

The wonderful David Maister of Trusted Advisor fame said two things never more important than now, in the time of Corona.

1. There is an old saying: ’It is amazing what you can achieve if you are not wedded to who gets the credit’ and,

 

2. It is ironic that a business in which the serving of clients depends so heavily on interpersonal psychology, should be peopled with those who believe in the exclusive power of technical mastery.

 

So, with Drucker and Maister in mind, here are some gobsmacking real examples of what I’ve heard from some salespeople in the trenches in the past few months alone.

‘Hey, the client has pulled out – they asked us to recalibrate our solution but I didn’t want to reduce the scope and blow my commission’

‘The client asked if we could do a shorter 12-month contract because of Covid 19 and partner in the interim with their existing supplier, who is our competition. I hate those bastards. So, we said ‘no’.

‘The client is resisting buying our optimal solution which we know is better for them. I’m not selling them a cut down version – it’s against my values.’

‘Jeff is not pulling his weight right now, and the client is pissed off, but let’s cut Jeff some slack because we’re all working from home, and it’s a bit tricky.’

‘The client said its budget has been cut, so we just moved on – no point negotiating if they’re going to play hardball, especially after all we’ve done for them.’

And finally…my favourite:

‘I’ve presented our solution to the client’s team three times already… they’re just not listening to us.’

How many more clues do people want?

Here’s a mantra for you : Ommm…it’s not about you…Ommm..it’s not about you.

So, if you’d like to self-indulge, please, feel free to run a hot bath, light a candle filled with essential oils and listen to the sound of whales gently humping in the ocean.

If you’d like to win some business however, keep talking to clients every hour, every day, regardless of the noise and try, really try to give them what they want.

Stay safe. Stay positive

Remember, your ears are safe, I dipped the microphone in a sumptuous mixture of sandalwood and vanilla during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves…till next time.

Game show host:      Welcome to Deal or No Deal……………… <music>

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             Welcome to the Dealmaker episode, where we go way beyond the traditional sales approaches to a land far, far away – New Deal Land.

In the midst of Covid-19 you may have found that your standard sales process has been performing as well as a Victorian security guard managing quarantine.

Let’s face it, if you look at the typical stages of

Build rapport

Ask some questions

Present your proposal

Overcome a few objections

Push for an order

Well, that’s as tired as the same security guard who’s been shagging the quarantined guests.

By the way, how does that actually happen?

‘Hey Mister, I may have the coronavirus, but would you like to have sex?  ‘Sure, let me grab my PPE and I’ll see you in 5.’

Anyway, back to the sales process, it’s actually more stale than the sour dough recipes of Lockdown #1 and how do you build the same level of rapport over Zoom anyway.

But, do you know who is winning? – The Dealmaker.

A dealmaker is someone who eschews the 7-step sales framework foisted on them by some over enthusiastic sales trainer with shiny teeth and a 90-page formulaic training manual.

The dealmaker looks at the whole picture and assesses three key things:

• What’s happening in their client’s industry and company right now?
• Who do I need to negotiate with internally to craft a great deal for my client?
• If anything at all could be done to win, anything, what would we do?

Grab a coffee and let me tell you a story:

It’s 1978 and America’s Boeing Company is the globally dominant manufacturer of aircraft.  Boeing isn’t overly concerned by its smaller rival, a somewhat convoluted consortium of European entities that created the company we know as, Airbus.

Airbus focused its pitches on its advanced technology like; lightweight construction and cost saving benefits like greater fuel efficiency – very rational - sound familiar to your presentations?

But, whilst it picked up a few orders in France, Thailand and Korea, it was yet to crack a single sale in Boeing’s stronghold, the United States of America.

Most of Airbus’s pitches were met with polite agreement about the slightly better forecasted fuel efficiency, a few new gizmos in the cockpit and a cheaper price per aircraft.

But no airline wanted to rock the relationship boat with Boeing or face the disruption and cost of significant pilot re-training in a new aircraft.

And when Airbus’s Bernard Lattiere went to pitch to the debt-ridden Eastern Airlines and its CEO Frank Borman, he received the same lukewarm response. Borman had also done what good clients always do – ‘research’ and added ‘I know Airbus hasn’t got a single airline customer in America and so you’ve got no support on the ground either.’

But Airbus wasn’t going to give up that easily just because its standard tech pitch hadn’t worked.

Lattiere, who had also done his research and knew of Eastern’s cash problems said, ‘Look, here’s the deal – we will give you 4 Airbus aircraft for free for 6 months – you can’t lose – you get 6 months of free revenue at a time when you need cash and after that, if you’re not convinced it’s the best aircraft, simply give them back.

Eastern Airlines took the deal and six months later, ordered 23 more.

Airbus had landed in America.

Some years later, in 1986, Airbus’s star head of sales, John Leahy pitched against Boeing at North West Airlines with the deal, ‘We’ll reserve 100 Airbus aircraft, but only deliver and charge for 10 …but at the discounted volume price of 100’. If you only keep the 10 for whatever reason you’ve got a bargain for those planes. If you do like them however, there’s 90 more allocated and waiting to be delivered just when you need them. North West didn’t buy the 100 – they bought 145.

John Leahy went on to sell over 1 trillion dollars’ worth of aircraft.

That’s a dealmaker.

So, now you’re thinking – nice story, Elliot, but we could never do anything like that, head office wouldn’t approve it, we don’t have the cash, I won’t get my quarterly budget if there’s no invoice attached.

What are the other objections I hear? ‘My client wouldn’t trust it, our engineering team wouldn’t sign off on a creative solution, we couldn’t get the stock, blah blah, blah.’ Wow.

Back here in the locked down sunburnt country that is Australia I can tell you from over 20 years of consulting on pitches, companies are doing this, they have brainstormed creative pitches and they have indeed been able to offer clients deals like this:

12 months free software on a 5-year contract, where the client paid only for maintenance up front. I bet they kicked the opposition out.

A 2-hour meeting was offered with the global CEO, then blew the client away with his knowledge of their business and gave them a signed Director’s guarantee of performance.

Exclusive access was offered to a client, for the leading engineering team in the country that had just come off a project implementing an award-winning solution at a top ASX 50 company. The client loved it.

Pricing that is so compelling and cash flow positive for the client, it’s irresistible. Of course, backed up with a tight contract on terms, volume, breadth of services, exclusivity and ‘no tender’ clauses for 5 years.

And an agreement to pay out an opposition supplier’s contract in full in return for a Pay as You Go, Software as a Service arrangement. A much longer contract.

The options are endless.

It takes the ability to stop following the measly Hansel and Gretel breadcrumbs of day to day selling.

It takes a team to negotiate with itself internally to be open to new ideas.

It takes a mindset of ‘Hey, from what we know, what would really blow the client’s mind?’

It takes a Deal Maker.

The next 2 quarters could be critical to your success during COVID19. Call me, I can help you win in difficult times. Or, call the team together, and ask them.

So, do we want a Deal or No Deal?

Oh, and if you think this is only about million-dollar deals, it’s not – it’s really about sales leadership and creativity. With that in mind, let me leave you with the pitch of entrepreneur Mark Cuban when he took over ownership of the downtrodden Dallas Mavericks basketball team.

Interviewer:                    When you were doing that, when you were first starting out, what was it you were doing? What was the grind? Was it cold calling…..?

Mark Cuban:                   It was everything. All the above. Look, when I took over the Mavs, we got, we had been voted, the only award we had won was, we were voted the worst professional sports franchise of the nineties.

And we were really bad. We weren't marginally bad. We were really bad. You know, I was the new owner and instead of creating an office, I didn't have an office. And this was in January of 2000, there is a sales cubicle, there was a sales bullpen. And um, I moved everybody. So, all the sales group were in this like, little fishbowl that we called it. And I put my desk right in the middle of it. And I had a laptop and old school laptop from back then. And I had a phone book and I had a list of people who had bought tickets and were former season ticket holders. And I got on the phone and I started calling people. Because I wasn't going to ask somebody else to start making calls if I wasn’t, right?

And it was like, yeah, ‘This is Mark Cuban, new owner of the Dallas Mavericks. I know you've been to a game and I just wanted to tell you; we'd love to have you back. But did you know that going to a Mavs game is less expensive than eating at McDonald's. Do you know that we have tickets now that are less expensive than going to the movies and you'll get a unique experience that you'll never, ever experience anywhere else?’

‘Well, you guys sucked, you guys are awful….’

And I'd be like, ‘Do you remember when your mom or dad first took you to a game?’

‘Yeah...’

‘You remember how you felt?’

‘Yeah...’

‘Do you get that going to McDonald's? Do you get that going to the movies? No, we, we create special experiences. I can't guarantee you we're going to win or lose, but I can guarantee you we're going to make the entertainment, so when you look at your son or daughter's face, you will be thrilled to death and know that you couldn't get that experience anywhere else. And it's $8 a ticket.’

Elliot Epstein:              Stay safe.

Stay positive.

Remember, your ears are safe, I live in Victoria. What could go wrong?

Take care of yourselves…till next time.

Creative introduction – A Few Good Men - satirical

“Jack Nicholson”:       You want answers?

“Tom Cruise”:              I think I'm entitled.

“Jack Nicholson”:       You want answers?

“Tom Cruise”:              I want the truth.

“Jack Nicholson”:       You can't handle the truth. Son, we live in a world that requires revenue and that revenue must be brought in by people with elite skills. Who's going to find it? You Mr. Finance? You Mr. Operations? We have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You scoff at the sales division, you curse our lucrative incentives. You have that luxury. You have the luxury, not knowing what we know, that while the cost of business results may seem excessive, it drives in revenue. And my very existence while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, drives revenue. You don't want to know the truth, because deep down in places that you don't about talk at team and management meetings, you want me on that call - you need me on that call. We use words like fleet view, volume control, total cost of ownership.

We use these words as a backbone of a life spent negotiating something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor inclination to explain myself to people who rise and sleep under the very blanket of revenue that I provide, and then question the manner in which I provide it. I would rather, you just said, “Thank you”, and went on your way. Otherwise, may I suggest you pick up a phone and make some sales calls. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you're entitled to.

“Tom Cruise”:              Did you expense the lap dances?

“Jack Nicholson”:       I did the job I was hired.

“Tom Cruise”:              Did you expense the lap dances?

“Jack Nicholson”:       You’re g-d damn right, I did !

Elliot Epstein - intro: So someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             Anyone who knows me understands I love that movie ‘A Few Good Men’ and the sales parody from IT Sales Exec, Chris Pappas is too much fun.

However, there is an underlying premise amid the laughs, and it’s that Sales are the only ones who can drive deals and win business. ‘Who’s gonna do it, You Finance. You Operations?’

Well, on the back of my last podcast episode, The ‘DealMaker’, the answer in 2020 in the middle of COVID19, is unequivocally, YES.

If we park the sales ego in one of the currently unused office car spaces for a minute, we may become open to handling the truth. There are other people in your organisation who can and should, open up new doors and new sales opportunities.

My guest today is exactly that kind of person. Michael Bishop is a lawyer with 25 years’ experience throughout the Asia Pacific region, primarily as legal counsel for major IT companies.

But this is not about the thousands of sales and customer contracts he’s negotiated. Nor is it about in house counsel being card carrying members of the SPU.  The Sales Prevention Unit. Far from it, this is the complete opposite. It’s about thought leadership from outside the realm of sales and marketing.

Michael is also an accomplished public speaker and a business professional genuinely focused on value. What you should listen for here, is his deep business acumen which we’ll come back to after our discussion.

Here is my chat with Michael Bishop.

Hello, Michael, welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona. It is indeed an honor to have a lawyer. Now, some people might be thinking, why do we have an esteemed corporate lawyer as part of Selling in a Time of Corona, but you have a very wide and varied business background. And I, wanted my listeners to understand from a viewpoint outside of the sales world, what goes on in terms of developing deals, contracts, and this is an extension I suppose, of the last episode, The Dealmaker, to look at creative ways and creative stories that abound around doing new deals. So, Michael, perhaps you can tell me a little more about what you get involved in day-to-day, cause it's certainly not looking at the minutia of contracts every five minutes.

Michael Bishop:         No, no. We probably spent very little time actually on the minutia of contracts.  I think the things I spend most of my time on, and it's very broad given that the role that I have itself is very broad. I look after Legal for the whole of Asia Pacific in Japan and it can be incredibly varied. It's really kind of helping in determining the right strategies for each market. It's also trying to manage at the moment, a number of macro events that we've been struggling with. I mean the biggest macro event hit us as a business last year, was the drop in pricing , which in storage really impacted us massively and meant that we had to sell,, two times the amount of product really to set our revenue targets.

Michael Bishop:         To the US-China trade war -  that's a really great example actually, of how we try and leverage legal value outside of the normal process. It’s probably a really good example of start with. With all the new US-China trade war challenges going on last year, the one thing that really impacted us as a business as we were actually really starting to scale up in China, was as a US-made product, we were going to get by 20% tariffs on all of our product going into China. So a good example of really how Legal can manage that process, and that value was, we actually then spoke internally about the ability to expand our manufacturing facilities in the Czech Republic, and then work with the local Chamber of Commerce to obtain a certificate of origin out of the Czech Republic. Which then the equipment went in effectively as a Czech product rather than as US products, managed to mitigate and avoid most of those tariffs, which had a massive impact on our business.

Elliot Epstein:             It is a good example. So these are the kinds of value that you can add. Because my contention is that you, whether you're a CFO or a lawyer, Head of Legal in an organization, there are other resources that salespeople have at their disposal to understand where they can leverage their strategy and where they can leverage deals. So perhaps you can share with us some other tangible on-the-ground examples of where you would get involved in a deal now.

Michael Bishop:         So your point is exactly right. Whether you're a CFO, whether you're a general counsel or anything else, we're all businesspeople. And fundamentally my first job is to help the business. You know, it is to guide the business and help guide  the business against risk. But I think it's also really to assist the business and help us drive deals. And, you know, ultimately we're all responsible for the revenue. And I tried to tackle that in many different ways. That can be from, for me, very basic things like, you know, finding ways in which we can really accelerate the business that we do. Especially, you know, in the environment we’re operating in currently, I think each and every dollar has to be taken off the table as quickly as possible.

And we want to make sure there are no impediments to the deals that we're doing with people. It's very important that we understand the kind of business that people are looking to do at the moment as well. Clearly what we've seen locally is a huge amount of acceleration towards the cloud and digitalization. It's understanding how that affects our customers and how they might want to buy. And I think we can really take a very large role in how we lead and guide those kinds of conversations rather than just being the people that, you know, you come to the end of the day and ask about T's and C's.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, the T's and C's are the boring stuff. And I see a lot of lawyers, you know, getting caught up – ‘Our procurements asked us for this liability on page 44, what do we do?’ And I think, and that's the boring stuff, right?

That's not interesting at all. So can you give an example of where you've been the thought leader that's helped to generate business and generate leads and perhaps it's one of the great presentations and speeches that you give around town.

Michael Bishop:         I love public speaking, which I think is one of the reasons I like getting out in front of customers. And I think, you know, in some ways I probably am a bit of a persuasive salesperson, you know, I've, I've been asked a couple of times in the past, whether I want to make it big in sales and I've genuinely given it serious thought.

Elliot Epstein:             In terms of what you've been asked to do in selling,  what have you been doing in that space?

Michael Bishop:         Oh, yes. The example was I was going to share with you, I think is which I think is a great way to get in front of customers and also, you know, ultimately to help you or your sales teams – I remember, for example, when we had the GDPR regulation came in a couple of years ago, that was really a great opportunity to get out in front of customers and talk about the impact of GDPR on their businesses. And in fact, at the time I was working for a different company, but we've got a huge amount of demand and interest off companies and universities in New South Wales and Victoria, particularly. You know, really just talking about the impact and fundamentally not selling to customers, but really trying to drive relevance in their business and great mind share, I think, and ultimately those kinds of opportunities really led to deals that we did, and I think because people saw that we weren't just out there actively trying to sell to them, but we generally want to be relevant and find ways which we can engage with in ways outside of the standard sales process. And a great example of that by the way Elliot, is that I found that we went in and spoke to one of the large universities in Victoria and we probably got 25-30 people attending one of these meetings. And there were people who probably we would have struggled to get in contact with, you know, whether that was security officers or data privacy officers or governance, they all came and attended. And it really extended our network within those customers..

Elliot Epstein:             You raise a really important point here because most sales people in all industries, go to the standard decision-maker, which is, you know, if you're in it, you'll go to a CIO or head of infrastructure. If you're in manufacturing, you'll go to a production manager and financial services, you know, you'll go to the general manager or head of a distribution or something like that. One of the missing links I think is not only using resources like you, but also going to the people that are affected by issues like governance, privacy, and so on. So, you know, how many people sell security to another lawyer of another company? Not many, they go to the IT manager and speak to them. So what are your thoughts on that?

Michael Bishop:         Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And I think it's actually part of making sure you get very sort of deep engagement with your customers as well. So they're not just engaged at the sales level, but they're engaged at the finance level, legal and everything else as well. And I think those relationships pay off for you massively. As I said, in that example, it absolutely worked to give us access to a huge amount of stakeholders we wouldn't have had any access to before. And we continued to do that. I mean, so we've been doing that. So the really good example, I think with COVID as well, what's been happening is that we've had to find different ways of getting to our customers and we've done a huge amount of events, more sort of digital versus analog, and find new ways of engaging, interacting with clients and customers is we've had events where that could have been for example, whiskey tasting events.

We do events were we can speak to sports leaders, leaders in business and they're all different ways that we can engage in potentially bringing in different audiences. So I spoke at one recently, which was just really go to and talk on a number of relevant topics. And again, not specifically around what we're selling and our own products, but we can talk about things which are relevant to the industry, things which are impacting them. And that can be from things like new regulation, or it can be things like ransomware, very sort of current topical trends in the markets where we can kind of engage with and get traction with the audience and bring them in to talk to us in a way that I do think creates a lot more, not sort of momentum, but sort of breadth in your customer base.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah. It's broadening beyond the traditional sales process and using resources like you with expertise to be thought leaders. And then that feeds back into the pipeline. It makes too much sense. I'd be curious to know, have you ever spoken or counseled or advised procurement on the other side?

Michael Bishop:         No. So actually in my career, I've probably worked in IT now for about 25 years and probably the last 15 years I've been in data storage, but I've always been on this side of the business. So I'm very used to dealing with procurement, but I've never been on the procurement side.

Elliot Epstein:             Okay. What'ss the best advice you would have? Because, you know, I've written a book about Sales versus Procurement with my procurement buddy, Paul Rogers. But I'd be curious to know from a legal perspective, what are the top two or three things you've seen when handling procurement, that tends to work best?

Michael Bishop:         But what I think most of it is probably the most challenging thing when you're dealing with any kind of procurement is often RFP. It's always very difficult because the RFP responses tend to be very binary and it's very hard to sort of properly engage with people. But what I generally find any negotiation that I do, actually, whether that's procurement or with lawyers is to try and lift the conversation as much as we can to really understand what their issues are rather than getting involved in that money shot. Now, what do you really care about? I think there's a massive tendancy on the part of lawyers and we're all guilty of it, to some extent, to engage in a bit of, you know, intellectual sparring that doesn't ultimately benefit either party. It doesn't take them forward as quickly as possible.

Elliot Epstein:             I'm glad you raised that.

Michael Bishop:         Yeah. That's always my main thing, really strong lift the conversation and actually trying to understand what their issues are and how we can help with those issues rather than squabbling about particular points, liability or warranties.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, that's terrific because I see the alternative, I have seen deals lost and I'm sure you have somewhere where the lawyers actually scuppered 12 months of work because they made it about themselves and by made a difficult and they wanted to stick to some ridiculous rule and they wanted to win an intellectual battle rather than win business. And win business with the client in mind, based on what they wanted to achieve. So,  hopefully you're not a unicorn Micheal and that there are others out there. I just love the fact that; A) you're a business person and, B) you get involved in creating thought leadership, which then feeds into sales activity, deal mindsets, and applies so much acumen in an area where,  it doesn't need to be one dimensional. My final question to you is really about where you see contracts going, where you see business going in the next couple of years, given the COVID scenario. So what are your crystal ball predictions,  when you look ahead?

Michael Bishop:         Fundamentally, I look off the APJ regions. I'm very focused on APJ what's happening in APJ. I read an article the other day saying that public cloud spending in China grew like 60% in 2020 to $19 billion. Because we are seeing this very quick and rapid shift to online, online business platforms. And I think for us, there's a few things that we need to do. We need to make sure that we are very relevant in the cloud because certainly more workloads and apps are moving to the cloud and we need to be a very cloud focused company, but we also need to speed up our own digitalization. And I think for the rest of that means driving a lot more of our business towards the websites and making it super easy for customers to buy from us.

That's certainly going to be one of our big initiatives as we go forward. That's something that I've been personally involved in as well. But the bigger thing is for us is at the moment, people really don't know what their needs are going to be, and that's going to be very amorphous over the next few months, potentially years as well. So the key thing which we've been investing in which I'm very personally involved in as well, is storage as a service and providing that elasticity in terms of storage demands, where people can scale up and down, as things might change. I think that's going to be huge for us and that's going to be huge for the market.

Elliot Epstein:             I think that kind of flexibility, whether it's subscriptions or, or cloud offering in IT or anything that is going to service the new needs and new demands of clients is going to be critical. And, you know, my take on all of this is we need to use all of our resources. Now, not everyone has got a Michael Bishop, not everyone's a great public speaker because you've been well coached of course, and not everyone has your years of business acumen, but I would encourage everyone to look around the office. Well, you can't look around the office, look around your house, get onto a video conference and think, ‘My CFO, I wonder if he or she can add some value to what we're doing or my general counsel or a another C level executive in your business. And think maybe it's not just up to sales to start creating thought leadership and opportunity. Maybe there's some other brains in our business that can truly help what we're trying to do in winning business with clients.

Michael, it's been fabulous to have you on Selling in a Time of Corona. Really appreciate it. I'll let you go. Because you can walk around in Sydney and I can't. So I'll let you go for your daily walk and enjoy yourself. Thanks for being part of it.

Michael Bishop:         Thank you, Elliot. Great to speak to you.

Elliot Epstein:             So, if a you have a Michael Bishop in your company , get them involved, not just in opening up new avenues and opportunities but with their peers in your client base. For example, imagine this call :

‘Hello Maria, it’s Steve , General Counsel for XYZ, our sales team is talking to your Chief Safety Officer right now about implementing our new solution. The reason for the call is, as we both know the legislative changes last quarter means you’re potentially exposed. I wanted to get your thoughts on this and has it hit your radar yet?’

Worst case scenario, the client’s legal eagle Maria, defers back to the line manager. Best case scenario, she says ‘Hmmmm … tell me a bit more about what you think our exposure is?’

If you don’t have a Michael Bishop, you’ve probably got an external law firm who should get off their butts and do more than charge you a fortune for contractual liability documents. You pay them enough and many of them are sitting at home with relevance deprivation syndrome. Get them to host some webinars on your behalf and invite their network, and their clients to expand your reach.

So, whether it’s your lawyer, your CFO, your risk and governance person, head of safety, or head of production, there’s a lot of expertise. And there’s never been a better time to co-opt the whole business to growing your pipeline.

Let me close with this: You run your sales unit how you run your sales unit. You eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 clients who are trained to kill you. Don’t think for a minute they can dictate who talks to their business. Go on. Make ‘em nervous.

 

Stay safe. Stay positive

Remember, your ears are safe, Michael and I signed off on the premise that nothing in this podcast will be construed as a binding obligation for you, your company or affiliates to achieve any satisfaction, financially, psychologically or otherwise.

Take care of yourselves…till next time.

Cathy Freeman 400m Sydney Olympics – Race call

Bruce McAvaney:      …. ‘Set’…’an almighty roar surrounds the stadium ……… Freeman’s going strongly …………..about half way …….this is where Cathy exploded in Atlanta …………..Freeman’s got work to do here ………… there's about 150 to go….it’s going to be a big finish …. Cathy lifting ……takes the lead …. Draws away … this is a famous victory …… a magnificent performance … what a legend, what a champion …. ‘

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:          It’s been 20 years since we celebrated the Sydney Olympics, where we congratulated Cathy and now we’re coping with Covid.  Shortly after Australia finished revelling in our sporting achievements I met a small, suburban Melbourne girl who had just reached the pinnacle of her chosen sport, Tae Kwan Do to win the ultimate – a gold medal.

Lauren Burns’ story is now legendary, having competed on the world stage and won just 5 weeks after having her nose broken in training – twice in the same week.

Like so many other athletes, Lauren wanted to maximise her fame on the speaking circuit. We developed a great working relationship and she was a superstar on stage as well.

Twenty years on, when most of the Sydney 2000 athletes who tried their hand at public speaking disappeared off the scene, Lauren is still highly sought after and her presentations still pack a punch – literally.

So given a lot of people in business have asked me recently, over the Covid period about how to coach their teams, how I’m coaching sales people online and how they can generate peak performance in their people during a time of stress and disruption, Lauren was the perfect person to speak with. To discuss elite level coaching and what it takes to maximise performance, here is my chat with Olympic Gold Medalist , Lauren Burns.

Hello Lauren. Great to have you on board in Selling in a Time of Corona. It's been a while since we caught up. How are you?

Lauren Burns:            I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.

Elliot Epstein:             It's a pleasure. Now we're going to talk about the wonderful world of coaching with elite coaching, which is relevant to a lot of business people, obviously. I want to go back, because it's the 20th anniversary, obviously of the Sydney Olympics, where you brought home glory with the gold medal in Tae Kwon Do. But I'm more interested in some of the backstory of the coaching that goes into that. And perhaps you can share with us what was involved in your life, especially leading up to the Olympics in how you were coached during that period for peak performance.

Lauren Burns:            Well, I've had quite a few different coaches and you know, when I think about the Olympic gold medal, I was the one that stepped out on that mat, fought the fights, and I was the one that had the gold medal hung around my neck. But when I think about that medal, I think about that it's everyone's medal, everyone that was involved in that journey. And I guess I had coaches that had different styles and all of them were really important and integral into making that a high performance team. So for example, my Korean coach Jin Tae Jeong, so he was the head coach of the Olympic team and he came out and he was quite young, came out from Korea in about ‘96, I think. And he had a lot of cultural things to really learn about, you know, how to deal with a team that was like …. ours was very strong, mature experience team.

We had a lot of strong women on the team. And so we had this sort of, I guess it was a tumultuous relationship in a way because I always, you know, stood up for what I believed in. I always asked a lot of questions, but what happened with our relationship is that because we've been very open and very honest with each other, and we had had some of those awkward conversations and thrashed things out, there was a real trust. And, you know, when we walked into that arena at the Sydney Olympics and I stepped onto that mat,  I felt like  there was a real congruence. He barely had to do hand gestures and I knew what he meant. And so when you look at attachment theory or, you know, any of those sort of psychological constructs, it's about quality relationships and having that trust and it doesn't mean that everything has to be really easy.

Lauren Burns:            So with him, it was a, you know, it was kind of a, as I said, tumultuous relationship, but there was a real strength there in the honesty and the way that we were able to work together as a team. And then I had a lot of incredibly supportive relationships. So my club coach Martin Hall, he was just, you know, he challenged me in ways that I'd never, ever been challenged. So he used to always push me to be an Olympic champion before I was one. So he'd say that,  everything that I was doing, everything I was eating, moving, recovery, warmup, cool down… was like, is that how an Olympic champion was, would do it, is that how you, Lauren, as the Olympic champion would want to do that thing? And so he always held me accountable to a really high standard, and I felt like he would just do anything for me, had my best interests at heart.

And I just felt like I could call on him at any time for anything. And then I had a lot of specialists that had an incredible amount of knowledge and were able to work with me, like my strength and conditioning coach. Everything was just very structured and specific and had a lot of detail and rationale behind why we're doing everything. So I feel like there were a few different elements and different coaching styles, but they all came together to form this team that was, you know, we all had the same goal and that goal was about high performance and to win an Olympic gold medal.

Elliot Epstein:             What's interesting about that, Laura and I think is the fact that the conflict is a normal part of the coaching process, that things are not designed to be smooth as long as they're honest, and that you have the ability to challenge each other in that process. And I look at my 20+ career years of coaching in business, and I think some of the best results that we have again, is when we have the honesty to call things out. So if someone's not performing, someone's not selling, someone's not leading the team properly. My job is basically to get paid to tell the truth, as yours have done. And, you know, the truth is something that gets lost because people are worried about sensitivity or people are worried about how the other person will cope with it. Now you were pretty young and standing up for yourself in a very competitive area. So what was it in the relationship that you built that enabled you to a) handle the critique in the criticism and b) stand up for what you believed in?

Lauren Burns:            Well I've had a very strong upbringing and I went to a school that was quite progressive. So I think I had quite a lot of a sense of my own self and I also really had a sense of what I knew would work from for me personally. And I also knew that I had a lot of injuries and not all athletes have that, but I had a lot of injuries and sometimes some of our conflict was around pushing me to train more. And, you know, because I had a scholarship with the Victorian Institute of Sport and I had a lot of really amazing specialists around me, you know, and I had the sports medicine doctor and the physio saying, you can't train; ‘You've just come out of surgery, if you train, you could then set yourself back three months.’

Lauren Burns:        ‘If you take one week off now, then you could be fine.’

But as an athlete, you always want to do more. So then when I had my coach pushing me saying, ‘Get on the mat … if you don't train, you're lazy’, you know, I wanted to try and I wanted to be like, ‘Oh, I'm strong and powerful’, and ‘I'm here’. But I had to say to him, ‘I can't, the medical staff are saying I can't train.’ And so he would get really cross at me, but then, he started to understand that actually that would be problematic if I trained. And so there were times when I did train and then I got injured again, and then it set me back. And so, you know, it was about setting that standard and saying, ‘I can't train, but I'll be here.’

Lauren Burns:            I'll be sitting on the sidelines, I'll be on the bike, I'll be stretching, I'll be doing this, I'll be helping out. I'll be watching videos, watching training, doing all these things. So it wasn't laziness. I'm not kicking back, watching, you know. I was actually like, I'm really committed to training and being here and I'll drive halfway across town just to sit on the side and stretch to show you that I'm part of this team, but this would be detrimental if I train. So it was sort of building trust in that way. And he was really just coming from a point where that was his learned way of coaching and learned behavior from Korea. It was much more like, you have to train and till you die there as well, like people get injured, you know, there's a lot of depth of athletes, you can just pick the next one on the list. So, we don't have that luxury in Australia.

Elliot Epstein:             No, we don't. Can you think of a time without mentioning names, can you think of times when you saw other competitors who didn't get value from coaching or for whatever reason didn't respond to that level of coaching?

Lauren Burns:            I think when you're going into high pressure environments and, you know, the Olympic games certainly is one, there's a lot of things, you know, people are often on tenterhooks and there's even personality clashes. And in my time in Tae Kwon Do, the martial art changed from being quite sort of backwards in a way to really coming forward, to being an Olympic sport. I saw a lot of people sort of get lost along the wayside because things weren't communicated properly or people push too hard. And I think that's probably the most common thing is doing things that were not scientifically advisable and pushing people. And then they got injured with injuries that they just could never return to the sport or just being treated in a way that was really not acceptable. But for me, my goal was always beyond that. And so I guess I had a way of compartmentalizing it and I just didn't take it on board. It was like, well ‘maybe I’m being an asshole’, excuse my French. It's not my problem. I'm going to the games and this is what I'm going to do. So I just put everything, I put it in. And I was like, ‘It's not my stuff’. So that's how I dealt with it.

Elliot Epstein:             Well, that's right. You suffer from it. And I see in business that you've presented to a lot of business audiences, so you know what I'm talking about, but there's a lot of preciousness in some people, people take things way too personally when their manager or me or their CEO or whoever, as long as you know that it's a trusted relationship, trying to get the best out of you,  that you know they're not being an asshole for the sake of it, which does occur. That's called bullying, and people should not put up with that. But in the general scheme of things, and I think that for whatever reason, there is a preciousness and a sensitivity and people taking things far too personally, when someone is trying to help them. And it affects their performance and it affects the love of the job and it affects the way they have ambition for their life.

Lauren Burns:            And I think there's also ways that you can make change. And sometimes it's not always within that conflict.

So one of the most life changing experiences I ever had was the first time I went to Korea and it was freezing cold, minus 15 degrees, we were training in the snow and the ice and the ground is like muddy ice, we're tripping over. And we had scarves around our faces that were just turning to ice on the outside. And it was pitch black. It's five o'clock in the morning. We'd driven two hours from Seoul to get to this martial arts university. And they actually, they beat us with bamboo canes. So I had welts on my backside two weeks later when I got back to Australia, they hit us so hard. And it was just an experience that was just absolutely, you know, it just was devastating.

So most of the team never competed again because we're just not used to that sort of treatment. But in terms of making change, you know, if I had have just yelled at those coaches or stood up, and said, ‘This is not acceptable’. It probably wasn't going to make that much of a difference at that point. We weren't an Olympic sport. And they said to us, ‘If you speak up about this, you'll never make another team again.’ So I went to someone at the VIS and I mentioned it to them and I never forget her face. Because she just looked at me and she's like, ‘It's okay, Loz. That'll never happen again. So she went up to the sports commission, and they said, ‘Okay, you’re becoming an Olympic sport, you can't hit the athletes. This is not going to happen.’

So in terms of making change, you know, sometimes it's not always about if something's not handled correctly or you're not being treated in the right way, you know, it's not always just, I don't think, I think it's good to be able to stand up for yourself. Definitely. But sometimes making change can come when you have a little bit more time to really think about it and to think of effectively about it. You can have a much greater and more impact. And I think that's what happened in this situation. It wasn't just about me personally, but what she did, me going into the VIS then that actually set a standard for every Australian team.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. And standards are a good way of linking into talking about us over the journey, because you've been a corporate speaker since the Olympics. It's 20 years now of speaking both online recently, and obviously live to all sorts of corporate audiences about your messages and your Fighting Spirit, the name of your book. And one thing I noticed that, in our coaching relationship, when I helped you with some of your initial presentations, is that you are a) so coachable and b) so willing to try something compared to a lot of people in corporate life. And I'll give you one other example as well. So after the Olympics I coached a lot of Olympians who wanted to go on the circuit, but you, apart from us having a longer relationship, you wanted to do more and you wanted to engage with the process more, because you wanted to be the best presenter after being, you know, the gold medalist. You wanted to be the best presenter you could be. And it was, it was really, really interesting from my perspective how this was totally self-driven from you. And then all we did was add to what was already good. And then just add layers on top of that to get to the highest level of presentation. And you did, you were doing at some point, 100, 200 gigs a year, weren't you?

Lauren Burns:            Yes, that was pretty crazy. I mean, everyone said to me, you know, after the games, ‘Milk it for all it's worth, you'll get a year out of it and then you'll never speak again.’ But you know, it's been 20 years, 20 years, that's pretty much been my full time job. But one of the things that I really noticed, the difference in with working with you as well was, once the presentation changed from being just my story, but developed into ‘this is my story, but this is how it applies to the audience’, that's when I think there was a real shift for me as a speaker. And it was, I realized early on that me telling my story, people were really enjoying and then everyone had come up to me afterwards and go, ‘That's amazing. I could never do that’, or, ‘I don't know.’ And it was sort of like this distance between my story and their own lives. And I realized that I wasn't connecting the dots of, well, this is my story, but it's these messages within the story that apply to business, personal life, you know, or to different individuals. So once I was able to sort of weave in key messages, then everything really changed. And I think that's what's provided the longevity.

Elliot Epstein:             And you've done that really well. You really adapted that beautifully, which is the perfect link again, into what you're doing now, which is you're in the wellness world and you're coaching and speaking about wellness for individuals and for corporates. So tell us about that.

Lauren Burns:        So I'm just finishing my PhD at the moment, looking at lifestyle and mindset of elite athletes. And I never thought that I'd be back in the athlete world, but now that I'm coming to the end of this study, I've realized there's so many links with athletic performance and high performance. The research I've been doing with elite athletes, and I interviewed 10 World Olympic and Paralympic athletes. And I realized that these habits and skills and psychological attributes are things that are very applicable in so many different areas. So I'm really combining my background in sport and all the things that I learned through leading up to the games and in martial arts, my background in nutrition and naturopathy and now with the PhD studies with mindset and particularly around interpersonal relationships. So I've combined that all together into some coaching packages. So they're sort of one-on-one with individuals where we can really start to unpack what it is that they are wanting to look at and wanting to achieve.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So what do you think of the key outcomes, because you know, I’m an outcome-focussed person, what are the key outcomes for corporate, sitting here? So we've gone through COVID-19 this year. Some of us are still locked down as you and I both know. We're facing the challenges of high performance when it's been a difficult time already. I've got clients listening to this who have managers with teams going through this, I’ve got individuals that are going through their own stresses of performance, especially around sales performance. So, what sort of outcomes are you heading towards with this kind of coaching?

Lauren Burns:            Well, so I always start with health. I think that often underlies a lot of  things that we might be going through, whether it's fatigue or coping with stress. And so doing a basic sort of health assessment, always first, that's my first point of call, but I'm a massive fan of planning and you know, one of the things that I think with vision, creating goals, plans, short term, long term is that, you know I  always talk about them being like Mercury, they're like the element of Mercury that just flows and it changes and they're meant to be adaptable and malleable. And you know, it's great to write something down and say, that's what I'm going to do, but you've also got to be able to adapt when things, you know, well look at COVID, that's the perfect example of us having to, that wasn't in the plan, but this year, and so I think having strategies and tools and being able to, so I've got worksheets that I use that actually help people to understand the questions that they might not even be asking themselves before the planning stage. So to draw out some of those key elements. Even with, you know, with sales, it's, you know, I want to have this target, but then when you really start going into unpacking things, how's that going to happen and why, and really going into it a little bit deeper then when you do the sort of bigger plans, you know, makes a lot more sense.

And then, you know, having a coach or having commitments that you put into that plan is, you know, being accountable. And I think that's really important in driving success and perform.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So what's the website, Loz.

Lauren Burns:            Oh, just LaurenBurns.com, my website, it's all there. You can contact me and I can send out some information.

Elliot Epstein:             Great. It's been fabulous to catch up with you again. I'm glad you're still out there speaking and coaching because, I shouldn't play favorites with the people I coach, but just between you, me and the listeners, you've always been one of my favorites because of the heart that you put into things and just the quality person that you are. So it's been real fun to catch up. As Lauren said, if you're interested in speaking with her about wellness and her coaching go to LaurenBurns.com,  and I will see you again when you're not homeschooling.

Lauren Burns:            Yes. Fabulous. We'll actually, I have to say some of your coaching has been very valuable when I've been coaching my kids. They've just been doing their public speeches for school and their topics. And there's a few things that I hear coming out of my mouth. And I'm thinking, ‘This is just Elliot telling me to do this!’.

Elliot Epstein:             I’m haunting you!

Lauren, do take care of yourself, speak to you soon.

Lauren Burns:            Thank you so much for having me.

Elliot Epstein:             She’s still a star.

The key take-outs for you and me in the context of Selling in a Time of Corona are:

• Coaching is not a nice to have if you want peak performance , it’s mandatory
• You probably need more than one – perhaps it’s you, perhaps it’s me, or it could be a mentor with a different voice from another department like your CFO or Head of Customer Service or even a board member
• Professional coaching is about speaking the truth . I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen managers or so called sales coaches go soft on the real issues , because the manager wanted to be liked or because the consultant just wanted to get another booking. If you care about your team, you’ll care about the truth in making them better.

I’ll leave you with the words of the great US Football Coach, Bill McCartney who said;

"Coaching is taking a player where they can’t take themselves."

 

Stay Safe. Stay Positive.

Remember your ears are safe, Lauren lent me one of her Tae Kwan Do uniforms – a Dobok as Personal Protective Equipment for this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative opening

Elliot Goblet:               I went to a restaurant, there was a sign that said, “We take all cards”, so I gave them a sympathy card with the words “Sorry, I left my wallet at home”.

I have a total of three and a half alcohol free days a week. I don't drink every day of the week for the first half of the day.

You know, when it comes to superior service, you can't go past Optus. I'm not just saying that because Optus is one of the sponsors. I said exactly the same thing last month at a Telstra function. And they really appreciated my honesty.

Elliot Epstein:             So, someone at a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of self-development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-Suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign.

Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:            Jack Levi, a.k.a. comedian Elliot Goblet, has been performing to corporate audiences for decades, tailoring his material to industries as diverse as mining, agriculture, telecommunications and retail. We have a history because when I was originally in sales, instead of going with the other reps for a drink, I would be writing and performing. Yes, I was a stand-up comedian for over 10 years, doing gigs for corporate cruises, weddings, bar mitzvahs, clubs, you name it.

I even got to be the opening act of the Honolulu Comedy Club with a bunch of US comics, which was pretty cool. But it was a cutthroat business well before today's comics scene, which is far more encouraging and supportive. There were assholes who split your mic in two before you went on. So, your opening was completely fumbled when you had really good material. There was no compunction of many comics back then to just steal it. Many had radio spots like me, and it certainly wakes you up in the morning when you turn the radio on at 7am to find your own material coming out of someone else's mouth.

But Jack was different, supportive, encouraging, never disparaging and most uniquely, never judgmental about whether my material would work or not. As you'll hear, he has respect for people and his audiences. So, as I've been coaching presentations during Covid-19 for video conferences, I've noticed that the tailoring, the crafting of specific messages to particular audiences has actually dropped off. There are too many webinars, too many presentations that are generic and still very heavy on the show-up and throw-up dump of information. As if you're on death row and this is your last ever presentation, so you better tell them everything.

I wanted to catch up again with Jack to talk about how he tailors his corporate presentations, not just to communicate, but in his case to get that cathartic reaction we call laughter. Stick around to the end, though, I want to share the three key takeaways that you can implement to grab your audience's attention in your next presentation. Here is my chat with Jack Levi.

Hello, Jack, it's great to catch up with you again. So, tell me what a corporate comedian is up to in the middle of Covid-19 2020?

Jack Levi:                     Not a lot, Elliot. And I got to say, the last job I did was in mid-March this year. And that was actually a wedding. That's apart from doing corporate work. I also do the odd wedding, and that was a wedding in Canberra mid-March this year. And I have not stepped on stage since then. Understandably, yeah.

Elliot Epstein:            It's a difficult time for a lot of people, but it's a good time for us to catch up and talk about the preparation that people go through. And I thought we would attack this slightly leftfield approach in that, you know, people are sitting there right now looking at the PowerPoint decks, looking at their presentations, and they're not always tailoring it to the best of their ability to the audiences. They tend to do the stock standard and cut and paste too much.

So, I wanted to get into your background and understand a little more about how you would prepare and tailor for a corporate audience and some of the examples that you might have used to make sure that a) the comedy hits the mark and b), the audience receives the messages pretty well. So perhaps you could tell us a bit about that.

Jack Levi:                   Absolutely, and I've got to say, I put a lot of emphasis on tailoring, I remember back in the mid-80s, it was, and I was about to do my fourth ever corporate job and comedy expert Pete Croft suggested that I just include a few lines that are written for that audience. So, I wrote four jokes about for the people in the room. And amazingly, those four lines got the biggest response, even though on paper they were probably the weakest of my act.

But I got the biggest response because they were emotionally impacting and that showed the audience that I was getting inside their world. So, I guess from that brief experience with the four lines, I realized that this is the way to go. And I've been tailoring my corporate acts ever since and I've done over sixteen hundred now. So, I put a lot of value on tailoring to the audience and it's worth putting in the time.

In terms of how I do it, well, once I get the client contact details, I contact them and sometimes I'll meet with them. Other times it'll be over the phone. Sometimes it'll be just with one person, sometimes with a group of people. And I ask lots and lots of questions about the industry, the company and the people. And that chat can go for around about an hour and a half. But it's a worthwhile chat. And from that, because I've got a lot of templates, comedy templates, it's so easy for me then to convert information into jokes.

Because I've got the formulas and I've built them up over time, so I'm writing tailored material is a lot easier than writing those crazy one liners that I put out.

Elliot Epstein:           You know, it is because you put that research in. In that hour and a half session with a client, and believe it or not, I see corporate presenters that spend four hours on their deck and don't even spend 10 minutes talking to the prospective audience, would you believe? So, you know, it's astounding, really. And in that 90 minutes, what sort of areas would you uncover to have the emotional impact that you want?

Jack Levi:                    Well, industry issues, company issues, people issues, for example, from talking to a company, I might ask them things like who is their competitor?

Because I've got a tasteful joke that I can use, about competitors, I ask them things like, what are the bottlenecks, what are the delays in their lives?

And I've got jokes about things that delay the week to week or month to month progress, out of stock items, undelivered promises. I ask those sorts of questions and a lot of organizations have the same issues. And from that, I convert the specific issue to a joke because I've got the templates. With people I've got jokes for everything you could think about a person, their passions, the hates, their weaknesses, their idiosyncrasies. So, I explore that and I'm able to write tasteful episodes, tasteful jokes about people, because over time I've found that increasingly organizations have become sensitive about what you say about people in the room.

Interestingly, I did a job for a yogurt company back in 2012, which included all of the industry, company and people jokes I wanted to do and that went well. But in 2018, when they got me back, they asked me not to include people jokes because of the sensitivity that had developed, the extra sensitivity that developed over those six years from 2012 to 2018. There was a certain paranoia. There was a fear of, you know, charges or whatever.

So, they were sensitive. And even though the people jokes went well in 2012, they asked me not to do them in 2018. Interesting.

Elliot Epstein:           It is interesting, you know, the sensitivity because of the changes in attitude towards race, gender diversity and other issues is very different. So how do you go about navigating that? Because some people ask me, I often ask them to put a creative in the front of the corporate presentation. Could be an article from the Financial Review. It could be a video, or it could be something amusing. So, what sort of creatives do you look at now to still get that bond and that that laugh out there when you're talking about people and businesses, when you have to be conscious of that newfound sensitivity?

Jack Levi:                   Well, in my case, I haven't changed much at all because I don't do material that offends, I don't do racist stuff, political stuff that might offend the audience. So, I haven't had to change in that area much at all. I've got to say, I've just got this I guess I've got this inbuilt sensitivity and this inbuilt desire to be tasteful. So, yeah, I guess it's easy for me while being difficult for other comedians who have depended on smut, racist jokes or whatever.

I don't have to worry about that.

Elliot Epstein:           That's probably one of the reasons why you've had such a long, successful career, Jack, when, you know, others have fallen by the wayside. And apart from Covid-19 gigs, you've been doing this for so long because of that safety aspect.

Can you think of a couple of examples of some of your best lines that you really think have hit the mark because you tailor the content? And equally, can you think of a time when it bombed because you hadn't done enough research or because you misread the audience?

Jack Levi:                   Yeah, the one where, the memorable one where I bombed was the job I did for the Victorian Sheep Breeders Association with the audience, just did not get it at all.

They thought that I was purposely trying not to be funny because my humour was just too dry for them. And that's going back to 1987. So that was, that was a tough one. But there was a table of younger people that were laughing at my jokes, but they soon quietened down because they didn't want to offend the older people who weren't getting into it. That one stands out. There's been, there was on occasion, I remember doing a job for a mining company in New South Wales and they told me that it was okay to do jokes on people.

But when I did them, I realised that that was the wrong way to go because there was a bit of sensitivity at that particular event. So, I regretted doing them.

But once it started, it was hard to stop. I kept my people's segment short, but that was a tough one.

Elliot Epstein:           Can you think of an example of where it really hit, where it was really successful because of that research?

Jack Levi:                   Well, it's hit a lot of times. I've got to say, I'm not trying to boast, but it's worked really well for me. Generally, the standard audiences for me have been Amway audiences, because you get a standing ovation before you start.

They are very welcoming. Their audience, they are just on a natural high and then really good to talk to, such positive people.

And in fact, the Amway story is interesting because it was an agent in Sydney that I was talking to and he said to me, “You really divide audiences you know; some people love you and some hate you”.

And he said, I was just talking to an Amway Diamond who said, “Not Elliot Goblett… too deadpan”. And I said to this agent, “Well, as it happens, I just did an amazing job in New Zealand. And I’ve got a testimonial letter”. And he asked me to send him that testimonial letter, which he then forwarded on to this Diamond, an Amway Diamond on the Gold Coast, and that client turned around 180 degrees and decided to use me.

And because my material was not smutty and not racist, not crude, I got another six Amway jobs from other Diamonds around Australia. So, it's interesting that the perception sometimes of Elliot Goblett does not equal the reality.

Elliot Epstein:          Yeah, absolutely, everyone's got their own taste and we can only read it as best we can.

Elliot Epstein:          I remember presenting at a conference once and picked someone out in the audience and just picked a few people to introduce themselves.

And this woman said, “Hi, my name's so-and-so, but people call me Digi because my first job was at Digital Corporation. And I said, “Lucky you didn't work for Country Road then”.

Jack Levi:                   Wow, what an incredible sort of response that would have got.

Elliot Epstein:          Yes, so there was there was a delay, like a pause that went on for seemingly forever and then this uproar of laughter, which released all the tension. And surprisingly, I don't think she quite got it. And which is I'm eternally grateful for because I think I would have been in big trouble otherwise. Yeah, so everyone has their own taste. So just finally, Jack, you know, given that we're edging towards the end of Covid-19, hopefully, certainly where we are in Melbourne, what sort of things do you think you're going to be doing now that people are on Zoom, people having conferences, leadership conferences, aside from live gigs, whenever they might happen.

What sort of things do you think you might be doing in that space?

Jack Levi:                   Well, I hadn't really considered doing Zoom, I was prepared just to wait for life to start up again, but, you know, that might take a fair while.

Jack Levi:                   So, I'm open to doing something on Zoom. Now, may mate Vince Sorrentti has done around about 10 of those events on Zoom and, you know, things like awards nights.

And I'm open now to doing, you know, a few of those before we open up again with live work.

Elliot Epstein:          I think this is going to be around for a while. So, you know, having someone like you sitting in the corner of the screen with tailored material would be pretty cool for a lot of people having those sorts of conferences.

Jack, it's been terrific to catch up with you again. I really appreciate you joining me on Selling in a Time of Corona. The key message that I think everyone's heard is that there's an enormous amount of work that goes into the templates you've built to get those laughs and the research you do every single time. You don't just paint by numbers that you put in a considerable amount of work because the impact it has on the audience is huge. And you only get those bookings that you're talking about.

But the repeat bookings by people enjoying the fact that it's about them and not about you. And I think a lot of presenters could take a lot out of that. Thank you again. I'll let you go for a walk. I've only got 55 minutes left, I think, before the police come and get you.

Jack Levi:                   Yeah, I've got to say, you’ve got a great name, Elliot, good on you.

Elliot Epstein:          Thanks, Jack.

Elliot Epstein:         Well, I guess it's Two Elliots for the Price of One today. But before you go and get your next PowerPoint slide deck out, here are my key takeaways to really grab your audience's attention.

1) Never present to strangers.

With Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, CRM, etc. you should easily be able to do some research on who's attending and their backgrounds. Are they an MBA or have they spent 20 years in financial services and only recently moved into the mining sector? There's tons of information. I hear some presenters say the client just said it'll be six of them, a couple from my IT and a couple from marketing. Sorry, that's not good enough. If you're going to the trouble of tailoring a presentation, they at least owe you the names and roles of the people attending. If it's a webinar, you can still get the names and companies and like Jack, spend the time doing the research.

2) Call them or email them in advance.

If it's a select decision-making team, call each and every one and say, “Hi, it's Jane here”, assuming your name is Jane, “I'm presenting on the new Collectimiser 2000 series on Thursday. Tell me, given your role, what would you most like to see?” If it's a larger audience, email them with expectations. You might even send them a one-page company overview so you can cover the credibility piece before you even present on the day. Oh, and ask them in the email, “Hi, I'm available between now and next week. Please email, text or call me with any specific topics you'd like to cover.”

3) Ask around in advance.

It's frightening how much knowledge exists in some companies from their history. Send an email to your whole company or region that says simply, “Hi, everyone, we're presenting to the law firm of Dewey, Fuck You and How next week, does anyone know John Howe or their procurement guy Ben Dover? If so, please get in touch so they can prepare for this really important presentation.”

So, there you are, three ways you can improve the impact of your presentations through professional research.

Stay safe. Stay positive.

Remember, your ears are safe. Jack and I wore protective clothing supplied by Digital and Country Road during this entire podcast.

Take care of yourselves …. till next time.

Creative intro (from The Bastard - Russell Peters https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mTooblVXkw)

Russell Peters:            I'm going to let you in on a secret about Indian people, for all the people here or people watching whoever wherever you are. If you're not Indian, this is a message to you on behalf of all Indian people. Hope my brown people don't get upset that I'm letting out our secret. But just so you guys know, Indian people are fully aware of what their accent sounds like, we don't actually need you. We know exactly what it sounds like. We know it's not the coolest accent in the world.

You know, you're never going to see two Indian guys in a club standing and going, Hey, man, aren't we cool. Don’t we sound really hip? We are going to meet all the bitches tonight. I'm pimping!” Not going to happen, you know. We know what it sounds like, you know, and don't think for one minute that we don't know that you're mocking us when we're not around. It's an accent. We're not deaf. I don't think when we walk into Home Depot and go, “Hello, I'm looking for paint”.

“Paint is right down that aisle over there, sir”.

….. ….” Hey, Jim, did you hear that guy is looking paint….paint … paintttttt !”

“Let's go grab a cigarette and talk about this for half an hour.”

We know you're doing it, you bastards!

Elliot Epstein:             So, someone at a bat apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein, and I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of self-development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C Suite sales call, and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign.

Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

That opening clip from the wonderful Canadian Indian comedian Russell Peters is just one example of the fundamental differences between people, and accents play an important role in how our communication is received. Now, if you suddenly think this episode is going to be filled with racist overtones, please feel free to download the podcast “Looking Up My Own Backside” by the production team at Missing the Point. It's actually about helping native and non-native English speakers improve the clarity of their communication in sales and in leadership, so there are no blocks to their expertise and persuasive messages shining through. My expert guest today is going to chat with me about his work coaching businesspeople to feel more confident in their presentations and their pronunciation to have an even greater impact on audiences.

But first. Different accents have different effects on us in today's global world. You could have a Londoner selling to Australians and Americans selling to China, an Indian or Korean presenting to Americans or an Aussie selling to Japan. And the nuances of language, tone, pronunciation and flow can be vital. For example, let's take a look at a common South African accent. Often a very assertive tone with language to match:

“Let me tell you something, this is the best system you'll ever get. Here's what you must do.”

By contrast. The Scottish accent is nearly always voted as one of the most trustworthy and has been used for thousands of financial services, commercials and videos:

“When you buy from Atlantic. You're buying security and trust.”

The Israeli accent, however, in business is a little different, often filled with both swagger and incredulity that the client doesn't immediately understand how good the solution is after only a five-minute presentation:

“And look, there is nothing to talk about here, it's the best technology, it's the only one. What are we dancing here or what?”

Which brings me to my special guest today, Daniel Wolfson. He is a presentation and communication coach specializing in accent reduction for businesspeople to improve clarity. And he does what we both love doing, helping people succeed in their business lives. Get ready to go on an around the world trip as we discuss key tips on helping anyone who would like a little more confidence in how they communicate.

Here is my chat with Daniel Wolfson.

In my best Australian accent, Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona, Daniel. It's great to have you on the program. How are you?

Daniel Wolfson :        I'm really good, Elliot. Thanks for having me here.

Elliot Epstein:             Pleasure. Now, you get involved in some very interesting assignments, obviously, with your work. So, tell us what you do when you talk about improving the communication skills of executives and salespeople and leaders in the realm of accent reduction and the other work you do with presenters?

Daniel Wolfson :        Yeah, sure. So, the main thrust of my work is, as you say, around accent reduction, which is a very unique little niche that's growing, I think, quite rapidly.

What I do is I ask people how they feel about their communications, so are they happy with the way that they communicate? Do they feel confident? Are they getting the message across? And is accent or pronunciation anything to do with those issues? And if it is, then we'll tackle it and we'll start trying to find out what their little sound issues that are going on and how we can reduce that, neutralize it or make it sound more native.

Elliot Epstein:             Interesting. So, at the start of this podcast, I mentioned a few different types of people in terms of the accents and the language that's used in different countries.

And I'll be interested to get your perspective, because we're a great multicultural society. I'm going to throw some different nationalities at you and perhaps you could share with us the typical issues you might see and how you might go about improving them and how that clarity can be more forthcoming as we go around the world map. So, we’re sitting in Australia, of course, so let's start with Australia, because it's not something we think of as an accent issue.

But, for example, if you come from a rural background or maybe Queensland and you have a broader Australian accent, that tends to be a bit slower and tends to be at the front of the mouth like that, some people have that, that's where they grew up. And that's OK. What sort of things do you address with them?

Daniel Wolfson :        So, the Aussie accent is a really interesting one, because obviously this is a native English accent, so my work revolves around helping people to speak English, sounding like they are a native English speaker. Now, Aussie accents are a native English accent, obviously, but still there are very regional accents in the world of native English accents in the population of native English speakers across the world.

Aussie accents are what I would call a regional one. So, it's a less common one. And a lot of people do have trouble understanding Aussie accents as they get stronger. Partly it's the lack of pronunciation that goes on. It's a lack of articulation when a lot of people from other countries move to Australia, especially if they're speaking English as a second language.

Their first tactic for understanding native speakers is to watch the lips, watch and read the lips, what their lips are saying and what the problem they have with Aussies is that Aussies tend not to move their lips so much. It gets really relaxed at the front of the mouth and lips and barely even moving that much because it's all relying on the throat a lot of the time.

And so, they get a bit of a shock when that happens.

Elliot Epstein:              I remember once conducting a presentation skills program and I had a lot of US participants and I was coaching eye contact where instead of holding eye contact with the audience, this particular presenter, the American presenter, was going from side to side, which, as you probably know, is called “The Lighthouse”, going from side to side. And I said, “Are you aware that you look like a lighthouse?” And in the break, one of the senior managers came up to me and said, if you ever want to work with us again, I suggest you don't use that language.

And I was a bit taken aback and said, “I beg your pardon, but what have I done that's untoward?”

And she said, “How dare you call my guy a lard arse!”

Daniel Wolfson :        Okay. It was a good example.

Elliot Epstein:             So that broad articulation is an issue.

And, you know, when Australians are selling to Americans, for example, and even some Europeans, that issue that you raised is really prominent and it's something that needs to be articulated. So that's great advice about watching the lips and making sure pronunciation is a lot tighter.

If we if we move up the map towards Asia, tell me what you see, because Asia is obviously very different, very different countries. So, yeah, let's look at China. And Singapore is two examples. What do you typically see there?

Daniel Wolfson :        OK, so I'll start with China.

So, China, the pronunciation features that they particularly have an issue with is the “N” and the “L” and they're particularly hard ones. And that's really interesting because if you think about what's happening with the tongue, with those two sounds, the tongue is actually in exactly the same spot for both the N and the L. If you try and do an N and an L right now, your tongue will touch the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth, for both of those sounds.

And they have a very, very weak position there. And so that's really hard for them to articulate that sound.

So Chinese speakers don't tend to over pronounce consonants, which a lot of other languages do. They over pronounce the consonants in English.

What they do is they tend to under pronounce most of them, but they have been taught so well by their school system to articulate everything, every single little sound that they end up speaking kind of like robots.

So, it’s kind of it's speaking like this “where they are trying to articulate everything” and then then there's no flow and then it doesn't sound natural. And then it's hard to relate to the speaker because they're not kind of expressing the full feelings and thoughts that they're having in a subtle way.

Elliot Epstein:             And you coach about the flow, don’t you?

Daniel Wolfson:         Yeah, so I'm all about the flow. Flow is the absolute key to this whole course that I do. I think of it like water.

So, you got to have the water flowing, and what stops the water flowing is blocks, something that's like blocking that flow. And what in speech that blocks the flow is when the tongue or the mouth is just blocking the airflow. Basically, it's stopping that air from coming out . Now I’m mixing my metaphors. Now I should talk about air rather than water. Probably keep it simpler. Let's think of the flow of air. So, when the air is flowing, the voice is flowing, the voice is flowing on the breath.

The breath is the air. When the lips are closed, the breath doesn't come out. When the tongue is pressed high on the top of the mouth, the air is restricted and doesn't come out too easily. And consonants are what produces those positions. So, we soften all that down and allow everything to flow.

Elliot Epstein:             That’s terrific. So, I mentioned Singapore, which obviously is also very multicultural. And most Singaporeans have a very, very good education system. And language is similar to us. But I mention that because there's so many different nationalities that live there. And one of the most prevalent, I think is Indians in the hub. So, in the region of Singapore, which is a large executive hub, I've met a lot of really experienced, highly technical, almost brilliant Indians, but they struggle with speed and pace and they struggle with articulation.

And unfortunately, on many occasions, they can't get the great expertise over to other members of the audience. So, what are your key tips about those sort of people?

Daniel Wolfson:         This is this is definitely a big one. So, this is an interesting one, too, because like the English language for Indian speakers is almost a first language. So, it's a kind of a different kind of thing that's going on here. And Indian speakers tend to speak so fast and so fluently because it feels like it's almost their first language.

And so, the first thing that has to happen is, yeah, you got to slow down. It's got to be slower.

And one interesting thing about Indian pronunciation of English compared to a native English speaker version of pronunciation of English, if you can follow that sentence, is I talked about the flow before.

Now the native English speakers have soft consonants and big, long, lazy vowels.  Those vowels are nice, long and lazy and are consonants are very soft.

But Indian speakers have literally the opposite very, very short vowels and very hard-hitting consonants.

So, if I can dare to do an impression which is going to be kind of stereotypical, so forgive me for that, “but it's kind of more technical talking like this where the vowels are becoming very short and the consonants, the these sounds appear in the D and the T's” become very heavy and very strong. And that confuses a lot of people when they're listening because people are actually listening. Native speakers are actually listening to the vowels. That's that was given us the clue about what people are saying.

If we can't hear the vowel or the vowel is not right, then we get confused. Whereas a lot of people, when they're trying to speak English clearly and they speak English as a second language, they're really hitting the consonants as hard as they can because they think that's where the clarity is. So, there's a bit of a confusion there.

Elliot Epstein:             That's fascinating that it's the vowels that are the key, and yet the consonants are what they focus on, which is a great insight.

When you move to Europe into Germany, “we have a very precise language. And in this situation, it is so clear and so precise and so perfect zat  it doesn't have the relatability.”

So, what do you do in that situation where these people are terrific at their jobs as well? But the likability is out of the voice?

Daniel Wolfson:         Yeah, that's so it's so interesting and so true. I have I have a German client at the moment, actually, and she's incredibly talented, so smart, so sharp, so quick. And that all comes out in her voice.

Of course, it all comes out in a speech like, well, our personality does come out in a speech, but the bit that doesn't come out is the receptivity, the openness to relaxation, easy-going, nervous. And that's a big feature specifically of Aussie accents.

And so, she actually speaks very, very well, articulate. No problem with clarity. And when you did your lovely impression just now, you replace TH with a Z, which is a typical feature.

She doesn't even do that. But what she does do is this very fast speech and as you say, “very clipped and short and efficient like this.”

And my main goal with her actually is just slowing it down and being a bit more lazy. And the problem she has in response to that is she gets very frustrated.

She just wants to go fast and get the message out faster. But obviously, communication is not just about getting it out fast. Communication is about receptivity and how you're relating. So, she's having to learn about speaking in a different style, which is mainly just slower, taking it easy and how that relates to how she feels when she's communicating.

Elliot Epstein:             Excellent. And one final one, because I have a lot of US companies as clients and when the US actually export people to other countries, the US send executives out here to sell or run divisions, or they go especially in the Asian region, Asia Pac region and Singapore or Vietnam or Hong Kong and places like that, they often have issues with communication gaps as well.

And when I coach them, you know, one of the biggest things we have to talk about is the sheer volume that occurs in a lot of American language. It doesn't have to be at 100 decibels. And secondly, it doesn't have to be the most urgent thing in the world, the most passionate thing in the world every time you're talking about a simple finance issue. And I'm sure you've seen that. And there are there are myriad accents here from the north to the south to New York and so on.

But what are your key points about people from America who end up selling and managing areas in other parts of the world?

Daniel Wolfson:         Well, let's see. So, I think what's interesting about the volume that you mentioned trying to get that, you know, it’s almost like an advertising with all the bells and whistles on it.

And I do a lot of work with people are using scripts. We use scripts, sometimes we use them for plays or movies. It doesn't matter where we get them from, and we just start to experiment with a different way of communicating. And we start exploring things like pauses, which is a really interesting thing. Now, a lot of actors use pauses in a really interesting way. So, if you just put pauses in your speech, in unusual places, sometimes it just really draws people in, and people are shocked sometimes that they don't have to speak fast or loud to get full focused attention of the person that’s actually listening to them.

So that can be really, really interesting, revealing stuff, using a script and just suggesting ways that they never thought of articulating something before, not even in pronunciation, but just in speed, in volume. Yeah, sometimes so quietly and so softly and taking a long time and they get restless and know they're going to be bored but actually sometimes they can be very interesting.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah. The key thing is that’s it’s not about the presenter. As you and I have both coached when it comes to the various aspects of presenting and communicating ... the core principle is that it’s not about you, it’s about your audience.

And what you do is help people become clearer to the audiences when they present and that’s a key part of the process, that you can be as smart as you like, you can have all the presentation skills in the world, and all the expertise, but if the clarity doesn’t come across, then they're still behind the eight ball.

Elliot Epstein:             Daniel, it's been terrific to catch up with you. Fascinating insights as we went around the world to see what people do and how they can potentially improve.

So, if people are sitting there right now, maybe they're concerned about their accent or maybe they have a colleague or a staff member they think could get value out of this…. now, obviously, after they've called me to coach their presentations, they're going to call you around the accent.

How do they get in touch with you?

Daniel Wolfson:         The simplest way would just be to go to https://pronunciationschool.com/  and you will find everything that's there on my website and you'll be able to send me a message or book a consultation with me, if that's what you would like to do.

Elliot Epstein:             Spoken in perfect English and your accent supports that beautifully.

Daniel, it's been terrific to catch up with you.

I wish you all the best, you’re doing ZOOM sessions, I presume, for this coaching?

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, everything's on Zoom.

Elliot Epstein:              Great, and we'll catch up with you soon. Take care, Daniel.

Daniel Wolfson:         Cheers, Elliot, bye bye.

Elliot Epstein:             The infamous character Austin Powers had a dad called Nigel, played by Michael Caine, who once said, “There are only two things I can't stand; people who are intolerant of other people's cultures and the Dutch.”

Well, Daniel and I both agree that there is no accent in the world that is a barrier to success, but if there is a lack of clarity and persuasiveness, it can be detrimental to an individual's success and it doesn't have to be that way.

With a combination of pausing, phrasing and vocal technique, anyone can improve their communication if they so desire. For a bit of fun to end this podcast and to reinforce why authenticity matters, I'll leave you with the famous actor Sean Connery. Yes, the great Scot who wanted us to believe that this was a Russian submarine commander:

“I present you the ballistic missile submarine, Red October. My officers and I request asylum in the United States of America.”

Stay safe, Stay positive.

Remember, your ears are safe, Daniel and I recorded this entire podcast 2 consonants away from each other.

Take care of yourselves. Till next time.

Creative intro:

Chris Rock:                Marriage is tough, marriage is really tough. Marriage is so tough; Nelson Mandela got a divorce. Nelson Mandela spent 47 years in a South African prison, got beaten and tortured every day for 27 years, and did it with no problem, made to do hard labour in 100-degree South African heat for 27 years. And did it with no problem, he got out of jail after 27 years of torture, spent six months with his wife and said, I can't take that shit no more!

Elliot Epstein:            So, someone at a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C Suite sales call and all of the various components in the sale cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign.

Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Welcome to the Relationship Seller’s episode. I love comedian Chris Rock on how hard relationships can be, but what are business relationships in a time isolated via Covid connected mostly by pixels in a globalized world where new competitors seemingly spring up sometimes every quarter. Are they the same as what we had in the year 2019 B.C. (Before Corona)? To find out, I caught up with two special guests for you today. Both have years of experience building networks and relationships and have a solid history of very long lunches.

They are the ultimate rapport builders. People who put others at ease, experts at establishing trust and their tips on staying connected are well worth listening to. My first guest is Scott Hudson, General Manager and market liaison at Computershare, who has built quality relationships with CEOs and CFOs of top ASX 100 companies for nearly 15 years.

Grab a coffee as we catch up to discuss how Scott does it, including Hudo’s wonderfully simple and effective “Three eyes” technique.

Hey, Scott, it's great to have you as part of Selling in a time of Corona in the Relationship Selling episode. Now, you have had a stellar career in financial services and the interesting thing about that length of time has been your C-level engagement. So, you're not just building relationships with mid-level people to offer solutions and deliver a result. You're talking to CEOs, CFOs, CEOs of some of the top ASX 100 companies. So perhaps you could share with us what sort of things that you do to build relationships with those people.

Scott Hudson:            Yes, thanks, Elliot, and thanks for having me on. Look, I think probably the most important thing and where I'll start this is thinking about what makes relationships. And that's really in my mind about understanding the person you're engaging with, whether that's whether that's Face-To-Face in a pre-Covid world or whether that's over Zoom or on any number of phone calls that we've all had over the last six or eight months. So really trying to sort of understand the person that you're talking to, that you're engaging with.

Where are they coming from? What are their drivers? And when I look at when I look at their drivers, it's equally important to understand what are their personal drivers and personal preferences as much as what are their professional drivers? What are they trying to achieve professionally? Because I think if you get to know the person that's actually in that CFO role or COO role or CEO role, a lot of the time, that will then help you understand the way that they operate professionally in those positions.

And I think, you know, we've known each other for a long time, Elliot. I think that was one of the real nuggets of gold I heard from you a number of years ago and has now sort of getting to know the person in the position, which is something that's not been a pretty good tool to just sort of use through my career.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, and you do that very well. There'll be a lot of people listening, Scott, who think, oh, this is a CEO of a four-billion-dollar company.

How am I going to uncover the personal drivers, especially on the first or second call of meeting someone? How do you build a relationship with someone that's typically sitting in the big office and he or she is an executive with a large remit? So perhaps you can share a couple of stories or insights about the fact that you and I both know these are just people, they’re men and women who do a job and they go home, and they've got kids.

Scott Hudson:            And there's all manner of ways that you can go about, I guess, sort of doing the research on the people themselves. And so, when that's direct, you can go direct. You can look up in industry journals, in the media. Where is the company being profiled? Where have those executives been presenting, where they've been talking about in the industry? What have they been talking about I think and then also, you know, sort of understanding how those individuals and businesses then operate more broadly in the broader market and industry ecosystem.

So, talking to some of their current employees is often quite powerful as well. So, if I'm looking at engaging with a CFO or on some registry services that we might be doing here at Computershare, I can sort of often get feel it's valuable to have a discussion with maybe the company's legal advisors, the professional corporate advisers. And to sort of understand how they operate; how do they engage with their service providers.

And that then helps me with then the approach and then essentially trying to find that rapport and connection with that executive.

Elliot Epstein:             It's  terrific and there are so many people that just don't take advantage of the availability of the research that's out there. So, you talk about YouTube to watch what they've said about themselves in the company, with Facebook, with LinkedIn, of course. And then you're talking about actually picking up the phone. It's just a simple thing, picking up the phone or sending an email to a colleague in the industry and say, do you know Jane Smith?

What's she like? What's she concerned about? What's her career been like? What do you think she'd be most interested in?

Even that stuff, which, you know, ironically used to happen if you go back 50, 60 years because there was no Internet.

Scott Hudson:            Elliot, its old school networking, isn't it? It really is. It's old school networking. It's having a look around the room and thinking about, here's the person I want to try and talk to and engage with and build a relationship with. Who else did I know in my network? Who knows them? “Hey, what’s Dave like…. what's Sally like?“. What are they up to at the minute, what are they trying to achieve and then sort of taking that intelligence, if you like, back in that understanding about  where those people are, what they're trying to achieve, and personally, professionally and then sort of adjusting my approach and my connection and my engagement to account for that.

Elliot Epstein:             Terrific. So how have you handled Covid, Scott? No coffees, no face-to-face meetings, are you still alive?

Scott Hudson:            Barely, barely, I haven’t really haven't lost any weight, which is just to answer that question, because I do get that a lot. I get a lot of “Hey, you must be looking really trim with no lunches” And the CFO is pretty happy to see an entertainment budget looking outstanding. But I think once, certainly from a Melbourne perspective, once it's back on, I think it's going to be back on.

I do talk to a lot of people, and it seems like that a lot of people are really missing that face-to-face connection. Human beings, we've got two hundred thousand years of evolution and you are dealing with each other face to face. That seems to be something that a lot of people are really missing, whether that's a Melbourne thing or a Sydney thing. So, I think, look, with Covid, I've spent a lot of time on the phone. I've had three kids doing home schooling in parallel.

And my youngest, who's seven, actually said “Dad, you’ve got the easiest job in the world. All you do is talk on the phone all day.” And I thought about that and he’s not far wrong. And I spend a lot of time talking to people about how they're going. What are they up to? What are they seeing, how their business is going, really trying to keep those conversations and connections going until we're back to some sort of new operating normal.

Elliot Epstein:             So, if I said to you that, I would guesstimate that about 30 percent of salespeople during Covid not engaging with clients or prospects on the phone to that extent, they're just defaulting to a set meeting on Zoom or using email. Would you be shocked?

Scott Hudson:            And, you know, I probably I probably would be, and I think I think it's a missed opportunity. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm Zoomed out and often find Zoom a taxing medium.

And it's actually a taxing technology, I  much prefer just having a phone call. It's  more conversational. You can pick up a little bit more nuance and some of the softer pointers in people's voices rather than the sort of often directly screen that that you might get on a Zoom or a WebEx or any of the other platforms.

Elliot Epstein:             So, if you were to mentor, you know, the next generation of people coming through and I know you've led teams before where you are, what would your top couple of tips be about where relationships selling fits into the stratosphere of overall account management and business development?

Scott Hudson:            I think it's very high, and particularly I think in this world where you can click into Google and find all manner of information around people, around businesses, around solutions, and it's really about trying to get some more qualitative intelligence insights, feedback. And that's something you can really get from  people, from relationships. So, I think from a quality perspective, you can do all the research you like, but to actually really get some colour and some perspective and nuance.

I think that's where relationships and relationship sales really do come to the fore and can deliver a significant amount of value to your business to your teams,  and ultimately to your clients and your contacts.

Elliot Epstein:             And one last thing is how much effort would you put into maintaining those relationships over your careers? If you think back over, what, a decade and a half to two decades, maybe of this kind of work, what would you do to maintain that?

Scott Hudson:            Look, I think it's really, it's really important just to keep up contact, and that's whether they're with existing clients and existing contacts. I really encourage people to think about people that they might have dealt with historically and look to reconnect, because it's a very, very small world out there.

And what you're up to today is going to be very different from what you were doing five or 10 years ago. And equally so some of those historic contacts.  there's a lot of relationship goals that are sitting in your historic networks. Now, I think the second was thinking about, you know, so you've got today’s relationships, you've got yesterday's relationships. I have one eye looking forward to, who are the relationships I’m meeting to build as I go forward.

So, it's very much like today, yesterday and tomorrow. So essentially “Three eyes” relationship management.

Elliot Epstein:             “Three eyes relationship management”., I really like that. You should copyright that.

Scott Hudson:            Yes, put a copyright on Hudson 2020 around that one, “Three eyes”.

Elliot Epstein:             And then you'll be called “Three eyes” instead of all those other names.

Scott Hudson:            Just add that maybe instead of all of those other names I think which is an extensive list.

Elliot Epstein:             Scott, it's been great to catch up. Looking forward to having a beer when we're all released from Purgatory. So, some great tips there, I really appreciate you joining me on the program. And I will see you out there in the real world.

Scott Hudson:            Thanks, Elliot. And remember, when it's back on, it's going to be back on. Thanks for having me.

Elliot Epstein:             My second guest has not only developed a fabulous network in the IT industry, but he also built a business from zero to over 30 million in only five years.

And he attributes a lot of that success to his relationship building prowess, Jarrod Bloomfield or JBomb to his mates, what else would you expect from a sociable personality is currently director of client engagement at Cube Networks. As you'll hear, what you see is what you get. You can't get more authentic than Jarrod. If you required a long macchiato for Scott, you'll need a cleansing ale to listen to Jarrod. Here he is.

Hello JBomb, welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona. It's great to have you on this episode, which is all about relationship selling. So, tell me when you first realized that you were pretty good at building business relationships.

Jarrod Bloomfield :   Thanks, Eliot. Thanks for having me. Great to be here. I first realized pretty early on, actually, that, you know, I had a unique ability to connect with people on a more personal level than, you know, others could develop, so as I said pretty early on, I knew that I had an infectious personality, that I could be a little bit cheeky and get away with it.

So, I think when I realized that it was, you know, I was quite, quite young and I've developed it out from there during business.

Elliot Epstein:             So, give us an example of how you put that tricky personality to work in an environment where, you know, a lot of corporate meetings are still a little bit stiff or a little bit stand offish and people sussing each other out. What have you done to inject your personality to make a difference?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    So, I think authenticity is key. And as soon as people realize that, you know, you're fairly authentic and fairly personable, it sort of eases the mood and eases  the tension. And it creates a lot safer environment to communicate. So, I think authenticity is key.

Elliot Epstein:             Which is you obviously, you're like that in your private life and your business life.

Can you give us a couple of examples of where you might have discussed the topic with a client that others wouldn't? Or you've had a bit of fun with a client where others wouldn't think to do that?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Yes, so I think it's a lot easier to ask harder questions and sort of business questions in a context around, you know, around sort of feeling really safe and comfortable. So, if you’re both of that mind set. So just examples where you typically ask, you know, the questions that a lot of people don't want to ask around budgets and timings.

And I think once you're authentic and you develop that partnership with someone, it's a lot easier to ask those sorts of harder questions of people. The people generally like to steer away from often that, you know, the questions where people don't want to get a negative answer or might be a hard answer to follow, they're the questions I like to ask, ask early and get out of the way. So, it's done and dusted. Using specific examples is just, yeah, just, you know, getting to that level really quickly where you're personable and, you know, you are having a laugh and being sort of unserious. We're in a serious environment a lot of the time, and I think it sort of eases people down and really to ask the hard questions in a way that makes them sound really easy.

Elliot Epstein:             Can you give an example of how you build that level of rapport in order to earn the right to ask those questions?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Yeah, well, what I do and what I do really well is, when I first meet people, I tend to listen and then weaving, you know, some form of humour  which works for me. And it's, you know, it's worked for me for my whole career. And as I said, it relaxes people to a level where they know that, you know, they get a sense that you're a real person and not making everything is so serious.

And you can have a bit of fun while working, people want to like to get to know me, I guess, because I take time to get to know them. So, things like, you know, talking about their family, their kids and then building rapport out like that and not so much all about the work, the work, things that actually feel like, okay, this you know, I'm really interested in in what they're up to. And my agenda isn’t just work, work, work.

And, you know, sales, sales, sales.

Elliot Epstein:           Yeah, and you prove that because you actually continue that whether they're buying from you or not, is that right? So, you seal with someone, you might win some business, but you'll keep in touch with them, and you'll keep that personal relationship with them, even if there's no budget that year.

Jarrod Bloomfield: One hundred percent, so some of the relationships I've still got, you know, are 15-year relationships, the original clients that I still talk to and still call in and say how they're going with no real agenda. And I find I have this little motto called “Sales Karma”, where if you do enough of the right stuff, you find that a lot of things fall into place. The relationships that I've developed and some of them are 15 plus years, I don't have the mindset that I constantly want to sell something. I think I build relationships that actually I like to turn into friendships. And if I look at most of my circle of friends, they probably all out of the IT circle. I have the mindset that I show care and interest into what they're up to and not just from a work scene and, and make sure I stay in contact. Things like text messages and little calls here and there and you know, remembering who goes for which football team and things like that and keep conversations going.

Elliot Epstein:             That's great. So how have you managed the wonderful world of Covid-19 as a relationship-oriented person?

Jarrod Bloomfield: Oh mate,  it's been tough. I think the expression I used or have used for six months is I feel like a bit like a caged lion. Not being allowed out. I like to meet people, I’m a very social butterfly. So, it's been, say, challenging because I started a new role only six months ago, so right when Covid started, managing a team. So, to build obviously the team, you know, building up that relationship ship with them and then obviously meeting new customers as well that that we deal with.

So, it's definitely been challenging in a way, though, I'll say it's helped me probably settle down a little bit from and not, you know, and use my energy in different ways. And it's enabled me to actually get a greater understanding of the business and our customers a lot more than I probably would have so it’s had  some positives. But I think, you know, we're coming to six, seven months now.

And it's to the point where I think everyone's at the end of their tether. So, it's there's a lot of frustrated people that you talk to. And it's definitely tough engaging in newer, newer projects and new initiatives with customers at the moment. There they are trying to keep things, you know, business as usual and keep costs down, which, is always the way, but I think it's more emphasized at the moment, so definitely challenging and it's definitely difficult to navigate.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, but you kept in contact with people, whether it's via video conference, text calls and all of that, which is great. You know, one of our earlier episodes, we discussed that some clients are just not seeing their vendors and their suppliers at all. They kind of dropped off a cliff or all they get is emails from them and nothing else, just pitching them cheap solutions. So, relationship selling’s never been more important on that front.

To finish off with, what would you say to people who say, look, I like to have a clear delineation in my life. I am a wife or a husband and a mom or a dad. And that's my life separately. And when I sit in front of a camera or I go to see a client, that's my business life. And the two are very separate and I don't want those lines to be blurred. What would you suggest to them in that thinking?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Well, firstly, I'd say, you know, each to their own, and if that's the way you want to operate, that's the way you want to operate. But I think if that's your mindset, it'll come out when you speak to people who have your mind set. Okay. This is a business arrangement, and that's all I'm going to, that's all I'm going to think about when I meet you, it'll come out in your body language, it'll come out with how you communicate to people, and you won't be open and honest, and you'll get that reflection back from who you talk to.

So, I think if it's okay to, you know, split up your family and work life, that's great. It's good to have balance. But if that's, you know, genuine, genuinely your mindset, it'll come out and how you communicate and how you present. So, I'd say have a think about it and just change some of your techniques. And yeah, because you get to experience people at a deeper level and then probably have a bit more fun while doing it.

Elliot Epstein:             Yeah, and I think that fun aspect is important because if you can't have a laugh with clients and even to the point where, you know, you take the piss out of them a little bit and you allow them to have a go at you, and you're pretty good at that, right. If the client has a go at you for overselling something or for getting a deal over the line and says, oh, so you're going to buy a Lamborghini now, you'll laugh it off and run with it and offer to take him for a test drive, whereas other people will get quite defensive about that sort of situation.

I think certainly in a culture like Australia and other parts of the world as well, there's a lot of opportunity to be authentic, as you've said, and to make sure that when you're dealing with people, you're not dealing with an organisation. You're dealing with decision makers that are living, breathing human beings. And they want a connection as well. Putting aside procurement, of course, who are in the robot category everyone else is pretty much interested in building a relationship, because what they're trying to judge is if I do business with you, that's usually not a quick fix.

It's usually a two, three, four-year deal. Are you going to be the sort of person that's going to be around in the trenches? Are you going to be the sort of person that I can rely on when things are tough , and you've done that exceptionally well. You know, the midnight calls, the 4am deliveries, the stuff that you've done in your career to make sure that things happen comes from that place of authenticity, don't you think?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Yeah, I think that's the key. That's probably one of the key points, that they know when the shit hits the fan, you're going to be there and it's not, you've got a deal and you move on. And I think if I if I look back through all the people that I know and the feedback I'd get was, you know, I'm always there and I'm always trying to help if something's wrong, even if it's sort of outside of if what I was working on, I'm always there to help and lend support.

And I think that's where it's important you build out your network. But that leverage it correctly as well and have different areas of business involved in it. And yes, I pride myself on, you know, making sure that I take those hard phone calls and it's not even the, it's being honest as well when something when you've done something wrong, I think it's and as you said, the ability to sort of take the piss out of yourself a little bit always, always lightens the mood.

So, I have a unique skill set and a great gift of doing that.

Elliot Epstein:             You do.

It's been great to catch up with you. We're only a couple of weeks away, so we're told in Victoria from being able to have a real light beer or coffee with someone out there. And I'll bet you can't wait.

Jarrod Bloomfield:    I can't wait and I said to someone the other day, there’s going to be a lot of IT people out and about. I think I think there's going to be a few late nights because a lot of the guys want to catch up and definitely chew the fat, mate. So, I can't wait. And hopefully, fingers crossed, we're out in about two weeks and we can have a face-to-face beer mate. That would be awesome.

Elliot Epstein:             Good. Don't text me when you're slightly under the weather at 2:00 a.m.

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Definitely not, definitely not. I'll lose your number after midnight.

Elliot Epstein:              Thanks, JBomb, will see you soon.

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Thanks, Elliot. Bye.

Elliot Epstein:             So now you've had a coffee and a beer with Huddo and JBomb, you should be ready to grab lunch with a client or two. I can smell the Steakhouse ribeye from here. See you there.

Stay safe. Stay positive.

Remember, your ears are safe. We recorded this podcast in StuckInDanistan, The People's Republic of Victoria.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative intro ( Trump/Biden stump speeches )

Donald Trump:        This election is a choice between a Biden depression or a Trump super boom. We're going to be booming. We’re gonna have the greatest year.

Joe Biden:                  In 2 days we can put an end to a presidency that has divided nation. In 2 days we can put an end to a presidency that has failed

Mike Pence:              For the freedom that heroes through the generations have fought to defend, we need to decide right here and right now that Joe Biden will never be president of the United States. We're going to re-elect President Donald Trump for four more years.

Joe Biden:                 The only thing that can tear America apart is America itself. And that's exactly what Donald Trump's trying to do. Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. Let's show him who we are.

Donald Trump:        If Biden and Harris get in the economy will collapse and our country will go into at least a free fall, but probably a depression. They want to raise your taxes. They want to take away your Second Amendment. They want to do lots of things that I don't think you can stand for.

Barack Obama:        3 days until the most important election of our lifetimes this Tuesday, everything is on the line.

Donald Trump:        The whole world and our nation is going to be waiting and waiting and waiting to hear who won. So, you're going to be watching on November 3rd. It's I think it's highly likely you're not going to have a decision because Pennsylvania is very big. This is a terrible thing that they've done to our country.

Kamala Harris:       So many powerful people. Are trying to make it so difficult for us to vote, they know when we vote, things change, they know when we vote, we win.

Donald Trump:       And I think it's terrible when we can't know the results of an election the night of the election in a modern-day age of computer. I think it's a terrible thing. And I happen to think it was a terrible decision for our country made by the Supreme Court. Now, I don't know if that's going to be change because we're going to go in the night of - as soon as that election is over, we're going in with our lawyers.

Joe Biden:                 I don't care how hard Donald Trump tries. There's nothing, nothing that's going to stop the people of this nation from voting and voting overwhelmingly. And when America votes, America will be heard. And when America’s heard,  I believe the message is going to be clear. It's time for Donald Trump to pack his bags and go home.

Elliot Epstein:         So, someone at a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein, and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C Suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sale cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign.

Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

There are none so blind as those that will not see.

Stay with me on this journey through the craziness of this election because you might just see the best sales ideas of 2020 since masks with football club logos were created. Here's what we know for sure in an ocean of misinformation, biases and prejudices. And no, I'm not buying into the claims of fraud and illegality. Joe Biden won around 75 million votes, the highest in U.S. history. Donald Trump won around 70 million votes, the second highest in U.S. history.

But if you listen to either side, there is utter revulsion and incredulity that the other side had that many supporters.

As fascinating as they are, this is not the podcast to discuss in depth the stories of Georgia, Arizona, African-American voting, suburban or regional biases. This is about why it is so difficult for either side to see how anyone could buy the other guy's product and why. If you can get your head around this, you will have an advantage bigger than Trump's ego heading into 2021.

Let's look at each side and correlate it back to your world of major account management, new business acquisition and retention of key clients. Firstly, we know that the likely end result is an exact replica of 2016 just flipped, Trump won key states by small margins and Biden won key states by a little more, but still small margins. So, each side focused on their core messages to very different audiences, the people who are most likely to listen to them.

Trump didn't do a lot of campaigning in his Democratic stronghold birthplace New York, because it will be a waste of time trying to convert them.

Equally. Biden wasn't focused on South Carolina or Wyoming. But have you ever tried to bid for a tender or a contract where, you know, the client virtually has a photo of your competition's account manager on their screensaver? I've seen it. “Come on, let's give it a go. What do we have to lose except lots of time, money and the will to live?”

Most companies have a qualification tool, but many are either primitively self-serving or convoluted. And they don't ask five key questions.

1. Do they need us in the eyes of the client? Would they value what we do more than an incumbent or known competitors?

 

2. Are they easy or difficult to sell to, or are they more guarded than the Queen in The Crown and bigger pains in the ass than raw chillies on a haemorrhoid?

 

3. Forget budgets or what they tell you their budgets are, will they spend the money that you typically charge for what you do?

 

4. Do we have any relationship with senior decision makers or is the closest we've got the I.T. manager's sister who walks your uncle's dog on Wednesdays?

 

5. Are they ready to vote? I mean, buy now or is this a long-term strategy?

 

Back to the US - each party knew where to focus and get the vote out, nearly 150 million votes can't be wrong. Then there's the account manager, the lead salesperson, the business development guru, you.

In 2016, there is no doubt Hillary cost votes, I'm not judging it or agreeing with it, it's just a fact that not enough voters in key states wanted her as President.

Again in 2020, there are a lot of people voting Trump out, not Biden in. So, the person who leads the bid is even more critical than ever before. Please choose wisely. If you actually combine the traits of Hillary and Donald, you get clear messages, these ones:

• Don't lie to me.
• Don't lecture me.
• Don't talk down to me.
• Don't insult who I am or what I believe.
• Don't behave in a way that doesn't relate to me.

The nuance, communication skills of relating to others as they would wish you to are the most critical skills you need for future success. What I still say today is people who don't have what is known as cognitive empathy, the ability to park judgment and see not only how the other party thinks, but how they feel.

Instead of denigrating it because you don't want to hear obstacles to your sales process, listen. I still hear these four things.

Don't worry, the other mob can't do what we do with our solution ( but how does the client feel about you, your solution or your so-called empirical facts? )

That guy’s an idiot, he doesn't understand how this all hangs together, wait till we show him in the demo.

I don't care what they said, we're going to recommend the whole solution - It's the only way we'll get our budget this year.

And the last one:

I sensed the client didn't like our approach, no matter, we’ll double down and present it again, or we'll show it to her boss. That'll work.

I've said for years in training programs, in keynote talks, in my book, it's not about you. And despite 70 million votes, the Donald just proved that enough voters didn't want it to be about him and his approach anymore.

So how do you make this happen?

How about trying this?

Look in the mirror on your phone and decide your next meeting has nothing to do with you, your product or your key messages, nothing. It's all about what they think is important and what they think is relatable. Park your ego.

A sales guy once asked me how to do that. I suggest that he marries someone who puts him down all the time, or he could just remember that cognitive empathy trumps ego every day. Rampant ego feels good luck, you have a sense of control, it's actually for losers.

Finally, why is it so hard for politics and sales to move beyond tribalism? Beyond your Kool Aid bias, your moral absolutism.

Because as Malcolm Gladwell discusses in his book, “Talking to Strangers”, we humans are pretty bad at detecting the other's true behaviour. Nobody picked up Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. Nobody detected a Cuban spy rising through the ranks for years at the US Defence Intelligence Agency, and no doubt there's someone in your company that didn't detect that the client was never going to buy from you and was deeply in love with the incumbent.

That's why the “It's not about you” theme is the magic dust. If most people are not detecting the other's motives properly, and you are - well, the world is your oyster, freshly shucked with a squeeze of lemon and a glass of champagne.

And if you want to know what I think Trump should do now, I'll let the great political pundit Gloria Gaynor describe it.

“

….. I just walked in to find you here

with that sad look upon your face
I should have changed that stupid lock,

I should have made you leave your key

If I'd known for just one second you'd be back to bother me

Go on now, go, walk out the door

Just turn around now

'Cause you're not welcome anymore….

”

Stay safe. Stay positive.

Remember, your ears are safe. I recorded this podcast in a protected booth supervised by the electoral commission.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Creative intro:           Boom Crash Opera – The Best Thing

 “….This is the best thing that has ever happened to me (this is the best thing) ….”

Elliot Epstein - intro: So, someone ate a bat apparently and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein. And I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training, and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching, presentations, negotiation, the C-suite sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot Epstein:             Welcome to the Highlights of the Selling in a Time of Corona podcast.

As the tumultuous year of 2020 comes to a close, I wanted to look back and share with you some of the great insights shared by so many great guests discussing the wonderful world of selling as we were dragged through months of disruption.

I created this podcast to give you some fresh thinking, a wry smile and a host of pragmatic ideas to keep the revenue wheel turning over. I want to thank you for the hundreds of messages you sent, from those of you who have enjoyed listening to my drivel, my sense of humour and my direct style of confronting sales issues as they are.

And so, to my guests, who have given their time to share their stories so that you in turn, can tell your clients better stories. Here are some of the highlights of Selling in a Time of Corona 2020 starting with my chat with leading Global Business Futurist , Morris Miselowksi discussing the new value proposition:

(From S1E5 – The Future of Sales with Morris Miselowski)

Morris Miselowski:    I think all of us in sales are going to need to look at our value propositions and see where the safety and security of our offering jumps up to near the top when it comes to what it is that we're offering clients and what our benefit statements are going to be. In addition to which, I  shared with a client the other day, that this is going to be a bit like marriage counselling, where, clients and suppliers have been together for a while and they go through a rough patch. And then when you come out the other side, you almost have to learn to re-communicate with each other and not take each other for granted so that you can have a better relationship going forward. And I think the one of the biggest risks nowadays, is to treat clients as if this is just a blip and we'll continue along the same merry way with the same budgets and the same products and the same consumption rate as what's been happening in the past.

And it's simply not the case. We have to see things with fresh eyes and have a look at how we're going to reinvigorate that relationship. And one final point on that is that the essence of what we do with clients has to be done with a new set of evidence and tools, because what you said three months ago might not apply now, in addition to which the person to whom you're speaking with may be very different because people have downsized. I imagine out of all of those businesses, you mentioned that are going by the wayside, there are huge numbers of people that simply won’t have a job. So you might have a different decision maker. And all of that has to be reinvigorated again from scratch as if you haven't met them before. What are your thoughts?

Morris Miselowski:    Absolutely. I would say that was ongoing, even before this, we should never take anyone for granted, but never more so than now. We really do have to start from ground zero. But one of the things that I would urge your listeners to do, and I know because I listened to you, they're doing this, but just want to put a line under it, is we need to be building those relationships right now and not from a sales viewpoint, but from a human kindness viewpoint. Go into our clients, go into those businesses. I'm not talking physically, I'm talking digitally and have the conversations with them about how things are going for them now, as individuals, even if they're home, not able to do their work, go back and reconnect because that's what this time is about. It’s great karma, you know, bank points for later on, but it's also a terrific way to understand what their needs and to begin to give each other hope, hope that we will get back to a normal round of activity.

So, absolutely these are very, very much like marriage counselling and the other end of that, that we will come out of this different human beings with different needs. So we must be sure that the landscape is one that we understand. So we have to make sure that we haven't taken for granted that what was before will be after. Because it won't be. The person is going to be vastly different as well. They will have evolved and changed either dramatically or not because of this period of time, the products and services that they want are going to be changed as well. And likely, very likely the budgets that they have will have changed. There are just so many of those variable landscapes, which is why I think it's imperative we start doing that groundwork right now.

And given budgets and spending have changed, my co-author and Chief Brown Wearing Procurement Guru, Paul Rogers came on the program to say this:

(From S1E6 - Brown Cardigans, Procurement and COVID-19)

Paul Rogers:              Well, I think given what you've said, that procurement has trying to avoid their contractual obligations. And I've said that suppliers are trying to avoid their contractual negotiations. The use of indirect communication does not help rebuild trust. And one of the benefits of face to face contact is that as human beings, trust is built by eye contact. It's built by understanding all of the verbal and nonverbal cues, and it simply cannot be, you cannot build trust by email, or it's much harder by phone. And even with video, it's not as easy. So we're in a situation where parties are breaking their contractual obligations, which clearly undermines trust. And then the means of communication that could rebuild trust face to face contact is being explicitly stopped. So, I think one of the short-term consequences of COVID-19 will be, where relationships have been strong and pre-existing, they will be tested. But it will be very, very difficult to recover from the behaviour of parties during this time.

Elliot Epstein:             Yes, that's a very good point. How you behave now, is going to live in the memory of both salespeople and/or procurement for quite some time. So, when we all come out of the Batcave and start to see each other again, if you've behaved poorly during this period, look out! Because there'll be suppliers that will take procurement to task and say, right, you denied us the opportunity of a fair go and we'll go and find someone else. If you're going to behave like that or put the price up, we'll stop giving you the privileges that we've been giving you. And equally procurement will be very harsh on suppliers that are not moving heaven and earth, or at least perceived to be moving heaven and earth to deliver as much as they can. So that's a really good learning,

Two great sales leaders, Michael Alp and Rachel Sakurai (Condos) joined me to share how they were managing the disruption of 2020:

(From S1E7 – The Sales Leaders – Michael Alp) and S1E9 – The Sales Leaders Rachel Sakurai)

Michael Alp:               I think the main thing is; go and look for the technology software tools to grow your business and to get in contact with people. We use LinkedIn a lot, in terms of actual conversations and finding people. I think there are a lot of tools out there like that, that you can actually go and use either as platforms or third parties to go and create and build business that you didn't have before. And it's a time to do it. Obviously if you're Virgin Airways, you've got some real issues about the cost of your infrastructure. For most people out there, that are trying to maintain a business, I think every customer you get now is worth five next year.

Michael Alp:               And so, I'd say it's a time for investing in your digital growth and on making sure that you can get to decision makers and plant the seeds now for coming out of it. I'd probably think that this mode of working that we're in now, is probably going to be persistent forever. I mean, now that we've worked out that the kids can actually school from home, guess what everybody's going to do? They're going to be saying fine, that clarinet lesson, you can do it from home. I think the same is with work environment. I think we're all going to go, “Oh, we've got used to working at home, we've got infrastructure set up, the offices are better. We've got a better technology. The systems are working.”

Michael Alp:               I think when I say this is a sort of persistent way of working, I think it's beyond the coronavirus. I think this is probably going to change office and office use and tools and attendance forever. And I think people will get much more used to using these types of tools that you we're using today. And I think building some competencies around things like presenting on video, using LinkedIn, using digital contact tools, advertising your profile, learning how to do what you do well through this digital footprint is really important. And so for anybody that's not in the tech industry, I'd say it's a time for you to actually, it's time to take a bit of time and actually see what you can do technically.

Rachel Sakurai          Going back to your initial point about how you genuinely need to care for your customer, that's the first point. So just being able to have your sales rep pick up the phone and touch base from the place of care to start that dialogue and check in, “How are you going during this difficult time?” and genuinely caring about the answer is really the starting point. And we are saying that people, regardless of their role and regardless of their outcome, they’re all craving interaction and they’re all craving connectivity. So, the fact that we are able to demonstrate that it's business as usual, and that we're here to promote certainty and we're here to continue business as usual and have that stability has been really reassuring. And I think from where I sit, we've got a lot of respect from the market where they've realized like, “Hey they aren't stopping selling. And it demonstrates and our systems and our resources and our people have robust and equipped, but more so I think people have really felt the whole sense of “They care enough about me during this time. I must be really, really important”, which they are. I also think it's really, really challenged the way we look at clients because there's a big difference between networking and selling. And there's a big difference to a buyer and a contact. And it's really, really forced us, Elliot, to be more strategic about understanding the major difference in someone who was a buyer and someone who you're trying to sell to. So now, in my opinion, it's the perfect time for us just to strategically sit back and locate those buyers. What is a buyer? A buyer is someone who's actively looking for, or in a real need of a product, service offering or anything of that kind.

So, to be able to identify that need, we need to go back to that point that you've driven home to me year after year after year. And that's that active listening. What can we provide them to improve their business, to improve their quality of life or to solve a major problem they're currently faced with? And if you nail that, it doesn't matter whether you're delivering the message by phone, by email, by text message, by webinar, you've got a very active audience. And I know it sounds very simple, but the approach that we're taking is less to do with product it's less to do with service. It's more to do with who we are dealing with. And that actually requires a lot of focus where you're putting your focus on others and not yourself and not your business. So, it's really looking into the customers or the potential customers, current situation and not yours.

One of the most popular episodes was ‘ The Voice of the Customer ‘ and its not hard to see why when CIO Andrew Pritchett shared this gem.

(From S2E1 - The Voice of the Customer)

Andrew Pritchett:     It baffles me why so many sales organizations are so inflexible. I understand to some extent some of the multinationals because of the rigidity of some of the multinationals, especially US-based companies that might have imposed the way certain things have to happen. And they can't do that in Australia. However, I've been talking about this with pitches for years, which is if you can't schedule, plan, design, craft a proposal on a solution that suits what the customer wants, then what are you doing? You can't just walk in with one flavour of yogurt and say, that's it. If you don't like vanilla, what's wrong with you. And then still spend time on that deal and wonder why it's spinning its wheels and sitting in the sales cycle for six or nine months. It's just madness. And the companies that get that flexibility are doing well.

And I know many organizations that have, and I refuse to use the word 'pivoted' that have recrafted the way that they go to market with proofs of concept, with pricing schedules with the way designs are done, the way things are cut instead of three-year contracts might be two-year contracts or whatever the flexibility needs to be. And what you've just highlighted there is, is a fabulous insight for anyone listening, no matter what industry you're in, which is if you've deeply understood and diagnosed the situation, you built a relationship with the client, it's your job on the sales side to craft something that is going to help that decision maker get a result for their organization. It's not your job to just ram a widget down their throats, or if you can't do it for whatever reason, because you've got strict rules that stop you from doing it, tell the customer and move on to someone else. It's that simple.

Andrew Pritchett:     Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. I think the only other thing I can think of around what may have affected, my implementation and budgeting is absolute cashflow sensitivity. So that also goes back to, you know, almost having the flexibility. A lot of the vendors want 12 months upfront. And for me to get that through as a business charter right now, really challenging. Whereas if I just said, we'll try it for the first 12 months or 18 months, we're going to charge you month by month.

Like that's almost doable in nearly every situation, but even having that conversation with the vendors so far, but mainly for software, having those conversations just hit roadblock every time. Now we don't do it that way. You know, I can get, I can get this through if you can do it month by month, NO!

Michael Bishop:         And who would’ve guessed a lawyer would’ve got literally thousands of downloads on a sales podcast? Michael Bishop did with this story of his involvement in attracting customers with his legal and public speaking  expertise.

The example was I was going to share with you, I think is which I think is a great way to get in front of customers and also, you know, ultimately to help you or your sales teams – I remember, for example, when we had the GDPR regulation came in a couple of years ago, that was really a great opportunity to get out in front of customers and talk about the impact of GDPR on their businesses. And in fact, at the time I was working for a different company, but we've got a huge amount of demand and interest off companies and universities in New South Wales and Victoria, particularly. You know, really just talking about the impact and fundamentally not selling to customers, but really trying to drive relevance in their business and great mind share, I think, and ultimately those kinds of opportunities really led to deals that we did, and I think because people saw that we weren't just out there actively trying to sell to them, but we generally want to be relevant and find ways which we can engage with in ways outside of the standard sales process. And a great example of that by the way Elliot, is that I found that we went in and spoke to one of the large universities in Victoria and we probably got 25-30 people attending one of these meetings. And there were people who probably we would have struggled to get in contact with, you know, whether that was security officers or data privacy officers or governance, they all came and attended. And it really extended our network within those customers.

Social selling was a big topic throughout the year and LinkedIn guru, Nathanial Bibby joined me with this insight into getting more eyeballs.

From S2E2 – COVID Content is King)

Nathanial Bibby:        I think another creative way that you can share client stories is to celebrate their wins. So, like I did some capital raising for a company that developed e-bikes and they were looking to raise a million dollars in five weeks, and they managed to achieve the goal. LinkedIn was a part of the fundraising, marketing campaign. It wasn't the only part of it, but when they reached the goal, you know, I posted a photograph of me with some of the directors and just, you know, say, congratulations, achieve your goal a million dollars in five weeks, what a privilege to be part of it. And, you know, quick, you know, send it, it basically just praising the client. And then I've got, you know, somewhere between 40 to 60 inbound messages off the back of that from start-ups.

Superstar Keynote Speaker and Olympic Gold Medallist stopped doing yoga for 5 minutes to explain how presentations can be uplifted with one key connection.

(From S2E6 – Coaching in a Time of Corona)

Lauren Burns:            …everyone said to me, you know, after the games, ‘Milk it for all it's worth, you'll get a year out of it and then you'll never speak again.’ But you know, it's been 20 years, 20 years, that's pretty much been my full-time job. But one of the things that I really noticed, the difference in with working with you as well was, once the presentation changed from being just my story, but developed into ‘this is my story, but this is how it applies to the audience’, that's when I think there was a real shift for me as a speaker. And it was, I realized early on that me telling my story, people were really enjoying and then everyone had come up to me afterwards and go, ‘That's amazing. I could never do that’, or ‘I don't know.’ And it was sort of like this distance between my story and their own lives. And I realized that I wasn't connecting the dots of, well, this is my story, but it's these messages within the story that apply to business, personal life, you know, or to different individuals. So, once I was able to sort of weave in key messages, then everything really changed. And I think that's what's provided the longevity.

We travelled around the world meeting ‘ze Germans’ and even Prince Charles left Camilla behind as we discussed pronunciation and accents with the charming Daniel Wolfson.

(From S2E8 – The Accent on Performance)

Daniel Wolfson :        So, China, the pronunciation features that they particularly have an issue with is the N and the L that they're particularly hard ones. And that's really interesting because if you think about what's happening with the tongue, with those two sounds, the tongue is actually in exactly the same spot for both the N and the L. If you try and do an N and an L right now, your tongue will touch the roof of the mouth just behind the teeth, for both of those sounds.

And they have a very, very weak position there. And so that's really hard for them to articulate that sound.

They don't. So Chinese speakers don't tend to over pronounce consonants, which a lot of other languages do. They pronounce the consonants in English.

What they do is they tend to under pronounce most of them, but they have been taught so well by their school system to articulate everything, every single little sound that they end up speaking kind of like robots.

So, it kind of it's speaking like this where they are trying to articulate everything and then then there's no flow and then it doesn't sound natural. And then it's hard to relate to the speaker because they're not kind of expressing the full the full feelings and thoughts that they're having in a subtle way. Yeah, and you coach that float, actually. Yeah, so I'm all about the flow. Flow is the absolute key to this whole course that I do. I think of it like water.

Top blokes and sensational relationship sellers, Scott ‘Huddo’ Hudson and Jarrod ‘JBOMB’ Bloomfield cracked open a beer to discuss relationship building during and beyond COVID.

(From S2E9 – The Relationship Seller)

Scott Hudson

Scott Hudson:         What you're up to today is going to be very different from what you were doing five or 10 years ago. And equally so some of those historic contacts is, there's a lot of relationship gold that’s sitting in your historic networks. Now, I think the second was thinking about, so you've got today’s relationships, you've got yesterday's relationships and one eye looking forward to who  are the relationships going to be, meetings with the people and the relationships I'm going to build as I go forward.

So, it's very much like today, yesterday and tomorrow. So essentially, ‘3 eyes  relationship management’.

Elliot Epstein:             I really like that. You should copyright that.

Jarrod Bloomfield

Elliot Epstein:             What would you say to people who say, look, I like to have a clear delineation in my life. I, I am I a wife or a husband and a mom or a dad. And that's my life separately. And when I sit in front of a camera or I go to see a client, that's my business life. And the two are very separate and I don't want those lines to be blurred. What would you suggest to them in that thinking?

Jarrod Bloomfield:    Well, firstly, I'd say, you know, each to their own, and if that's the way you want to operate, that's the way you want to operate. But I think if you if that's your mindset, it'll come out when you speak to people. So, if your mind set is this is a business arrangement, and that's all I'm going to be,  that's all I'm going to think about when I meet you, it'll come out in your body language, it'll come out with how you communicate to people, and you won't be open and honest, and you'll get that reflection back from who you talk to.

So, I think it's okay to, you know, split up your family and work life, that's great. It's good to have balance. But if that's genuinely your mindset, it'll come out in how you communicate and how you present. So, I'd say have a think about it and just change some of your techniques. And yeah, because you get to experience people at a deeper level and then probably have a bit more fun whilst doing it.

And finally , Comedian Jack Levi aka Elliot Goblet added a few more laughs and allowed me to share a true story that I’m proud of much more than I should be.

(From S2E7 – Two Elliots for the Price of One)

Jack Levi:                   I went to a restaurant, there was a sign that said, “We take all cards”, so I gave them a sympathy card with the words “Sorry, I left my wallet at home.”

I have a total of three and a half alcohol free days a week. I don't drink every day of the week for the first half of the day.

You know, when it comes to superior service, you can't go past Optus. I'm not just saying that because Optus is one of the sponsors. I said exactly the same thing last month at a Telstra function.

Because my material was not smutty and not racist, not crude, I got another six Amway jobs from other Diamonds around Australia. So, it's interesting that the perception sometimes of Elliot Goldblatt does not equal the reality. Yeah, absolutely, everyone's got their own taste and we can only read it as best we can.

Elliot Epstein:             I remember presenting at a conference once and picked someone out in the audience and just picked a few people to introduce themselves.

And this woman said, “Hi, my name's so-and-so, but people call me DIGI  because my first job was a Digital Corporation.” And I said, “Lucky you didn't work for Country Road then.”

So that was the Year 2020 for Selling in a Time of Corona.

I hope you enjoyed listening in the car, on a walk or even as one deranged person suggested, in the boudoir when the Barry White recording wasn’t working.

Thanks again to all my guests for their outstanding contribution. Big thanks to Hymie Lipszyc at Webmentum.com for his terrific production of these podcasts and putting up with my pedantic requests .

I’ll be back next year with new ideas Beyond Selling in a Time of Corona.

In the meantime, I wish you, your loved ones and your sales quota Happy Holidays.

Stay Safe, Stay Positive

Remember your ears are safe, I recorded this podcast for the first time without a mask, gloves, hand sanitiser …. or pants.

Take care of yourselves , till next time.

Season 3 Episode 1

Stand for Something

 Creative intro – Stand up for something ( Andra Day and Common )

“It all means nothing
If you don't stand up for something
You can't just talk the talk
You got to walk that walk, yes you do
It all means nothing
If you don't stand up for something
And I stand up for you
And I stand up for you, yes I will, yes I will”

So, someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Welcome to Season 3. Well, here we are again. And like you, I've spent the past 18 months online in Zoom teams and WebEx sessions. It's likely that your sales efforts will remain online for some time and indeed, in some form, forever. In this season, I want to continue to share with you some fresh ideas, new interviews and easier ways of getting the results you want as you navigate the world of business development, from the vantage point of your coffee-stained couch, kitchen table or second bottle of wine.

How do you achieve targets during lockdowns? How do you manage the need to be up for clients when some days, let's face it, you may feel flatter than the Earth at a meeting of the Flat Earth Society. How do you handle clients who are as tired, stressed and challenged as you are and whose kids are facing the same challenges as your kids? Spoiler alert ……  clients are just like you, human.

Well, most of them. I'm still waiting for the DNA tests back on procurement people, but the midlevel managers, the junior burgers and especially the C Level decision makers, they're in the same boat as you, just with a different set of oars. In the words of Shakespeare, “ If you prick their screens with another Zoom meeting, do their eyes not bleed?”

In this first episode, I'm going to pick up on Andra Day’s song and implore you to stand for something. Right now, fatigue is the natural enemy of boldness. Meeting after meeting, screen after screen, staring at the white laptop camera dot, and your colleague, who still thinks it's funny to have a Las Vegas background, “Hey, guys, look where I am!” (Hysterical, Frank).

Repetition does not breed excellence. It stifles creativity. Lack of human contact is not natural. So equally we have to adopt new behaviours that may not have been natural in the past. And the number one behaviour I want you to focus on is to stand for something and be politely but brutally direct with clients. Here are some of the biggest red flags happening in sales right now.

1. The misguided desire to educate clients

Account managers, presales and subject matter experts who think they've got an hour or more and think the client has the headspace to be educated in long winded technical webinars and a festival of slides slapped on the screen faster than a State Premier can yell “Lockdown!”

“But we need to educate the client in order to spark interest and then steer them towards the next stage of our sales cycle.” (Really? As if it's all about you.)

You know what virtually nobody is doing? 15 minute meetings or webinars with Q and A, all done and dusted in 30 minute slots. Max. If you can't generate interest in that time frame, you don't know the essence of your value well enough or they're not the right clients.

Here's a fun fact. The movie Titanic was once listed as two hours 17 minutes in their promotional piece because it was considered that three hours 10 was considered too long and would put people off.

A rule of thumb. Have the length of time you normally take to engage clients. Now put your Netflix head on. It should be easy, as the logo has probably burned its way into your retinas by now. Edit like you're a content serial killer, slashing superfluous information until you get to the marrow. Just the stuff that keeps the subject alive.

(Who knows? If you cut enough crap out of your presentations, you might get your own show ‘Crap Killers 2. )

2. Get to the point early.

So many old sales methodologies relied on building your case slowly but surely, with facts and data and evidence and dissertations on how your widgets work on the premise that the client would eventually say, “Oh, I see the beautifully constructed argument you've made here. Bravo! Well done. Excellent. I'll have 2” In 2021 they haven't got time to wait till the end of nine episodes of your company's series to discover who the killer was. Please stop deferring the recommendation to the end.

They're probably secretly self-harming under the desk while you take your time getting to the point of why you're there. Here are some examples of what you can do with those recommendations upfront:

“Good to see you all here. The reason we invited you to discuss Solution X is straightforward. It's the only solution in the marketplace right now that does X. We have yet to see a client who hasn't saved at least 60% of the overall cost after implementing this solution.  What we want to show you in just 15 minutes is how you can deploy X in half the time compared with what you would typically do now.”

“So instead of taking 6x months of your time working from home to roll out these logistics, we do it in just 12 weeks. We all know there's a labour shortage in the industry due to closes borders and travel restrictions. We can give you skilled feet on the ground so you don't have to defer key projects because you’re time poor with no personnel.”

“We exist for one reason. To keep production going, regardless of whether you're affected by Covid 19  restrictions, floods, bushfires or lockdowns.”

Once you stood for something, the client has the comfort of knowing exactly where you're going.

The client may jump in with questions or challenges. Great. Let them. If they want more detail, book another session. It means they're interested, and you've left them with a cliff-hanger. Most often they'll be waiting for you to prove it. And you've now got 10 to 15 minutes to cut to the chase using the Outcome./What/Why/How method? It sounds like this.

“We exist for one reason. To keep production going, regardless of whether you're affected by Covid 19 restrictions, floods, bushfires or lockdowns.”

“What we do is provide Solution X that prevents your systems from going down when affected by external events.”

“Why is that so critical? Because our clients, like ABC and XYZ tell us that supply chain certainty and system up time are the biggest challenges during Covid 19, and that your quarterly earnings are potentially in danger of not being met without a serious risk mitigation strategy. “

“How does it work? It's typically a two stage process, which we've done a number of times. It takes six weeks to implement, and you only pay US quarterly in advance, including 24 / support. It's typically also around 100 to $200,000 per quarter.”

(Yes, I mentioned pricing early in a discussion. Still too many companies, defer this crucial element because some old sales trainer with bad breath in a 1970s haircut told them to.)

There was also a huge, unnecessary reluctance to do this because someone in management once said, “Don't quote until it's fully scoped.”

Well A) nobody is signing an actual contract just yet. And B), if you've got 100 clients and they bought your solutions before, how can you not know a typical range of what the costs are? You're selling the thing.

If you really have to, just widen the range a little. Clients will respect you for it.

And if they shy away, you haven't lost the prospect. You've saved yourself six months of a sales cycle with someone who is likely going to struggle to fund it anyway. Don't believe those war stories people would brag about in pubs. ( Pubs…. I remember them, vaguely)

Don't believe them. Remember this? “Hey, Jeff, this company was going broke. They had no money. They were losing all its clients. But I hung in there for two years in that sales cycle, and eventually I got them over the line. Well, with a 75% discount.” Seriously!

3. Make it interactive. You know what they say about sex. It's usually a lot more fun with someone else in the room with you.

The Zoom sessions are not about you. They are the perfect opportunities to ask lots of questions of the client. So cameras and mics on. Always asked for this and treat these meetings as a discovery session. Lots of rich questions like “Tell me how you and your company are coping right now. What are you facing? Describe how you're addressing these challenges. What ways have you already thought about fixing these issues” and the big one,

“What did you most want to know from us?”

Take the pressure off yourself and let them talk and reveal. You'll need to relax and pause and not feel the need to jump in with some arse ways round, cack handed benefits statement. Just listen and hold ryr contact with the camera, not their face so they can see you listening.

So we've got a short, sharp session. You stood for something and cut to the chase, and you've got them to discuss their real issues. Whether you like the answers or not, you've just made their lives easier and in turn, yours.

And you've got more time up your sleeve to take the dog for its fifth lockdown walk of the day.

Woof.

Remember, your ears are safe. I recorded this entire podcast with a picture of Gladys and Dan hovering over the microphone listening to their favourite Aussie song.

Creative outro – Shutdown ( Australian Crawl )

“Shut down, shut down, you should shut down on her, hey-ey-ey-ey
Shut down, shut down, close enough so walk away-ay-ay-ay…..”

 

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

 

SIATOC S3E2 - Cold Showers and Hot Leadership - Matt Rockman

Creative intro – Rocketman ( Elton John )

“And I think it's gonna be a long, long time
'Til touchdown brings me 'round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh, no, no, no
I'm a rocket man
Rocket man, burning out his fuse up here alone.”

Elliot

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

My special guest today is entrepreneur and investor Matt Rockman, also well known as the co-founder of online jobs juggernaut SEEK, together with Paul and Andrew Basset. These are three genuinely great guys who have deserved every ounce of success in the business world and beyond. I spent over 4. 5 years coaching, advising and training the team at SEEK in some of their early days, and Matt was the sales impresario who led the charge. He knows a thing or two about culture …… and tequila, as I found out, and he has gone on to invest in success stories such as Canva and Rokt and joined boards, leading business and philanthropic change.

I wanted to catch up with Matt again to find out his views of what he expects sales leaders and business development managers to be doing in the middle of Covid 19. Here is my chat with Matt Rockman.

Hey Rocco, welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona. Great to have you. How have you been?

Matt

Yeah, good, mate. You know, battling through, but making the best of it I can.

Elliot

Yeah, as we all are now. You have an illustrious career, obviously. And you've seen so many different scenarios having worked with companies in which you've invested companies, that you've led and, CEOs and their sales teams.

So what are you seeing right now in the way that company leaders, and especially sales leaders handling Covid 19 as we head towards the back end of 2021?

Matt

Look, it varies from company to company and industry to industry. I think the markets reacted as a result of Covid, you've got sort of real winners and real losers. There are those industries where you know Covid has created a massive sort of roadblock for the industry as a result of shutdown and so forth and travel, et cetera.

And we all know what they are. Tourism, hospitality, etcetera, live events. You know, obviously the whole ‘gathering and meeting’ in the office is on hold. And then there are those other industries which are doing super well, you know, consumer discretionary, IT, E Commerce, etcetera, etcetera. So I think it depends whether you're in the Covid accelerator or Covid challenged bucket of industry. And their strategies probably need to be a little bit different.

You know, there's probably industries out there that are awash with inquiryies and their sales numbers are going through the roof. And then there's probably a bunch of industries, you know, which are super challenged and, finding it really hard to hit their numbers.

Elliot

So what's your advice? What are you telling people that you meet or companies that you're involved with when they're facing that kind of adversity?

If they're in the middle of that range, so you're talking about a company that sort of sits in between that sort of muddling through, not shooting the lights out, but equally, you know, their business hasn't completely fallen away.

I think sales or revenue is often very culture driven. As a result, we used to congregate as people and meet people. And, we like to sit across the table from somebody and try and get an outcome. We've now become the sort of Zoom economy, you know, Probably one of the biggest key attributes in sales, I think, is persistence, dusting yourself off every morning, maybe have a cold shower that gives a bit of energy. It's something I do and sort of getting out and treating each new day as a challenge.

And, you know, just making sure you keep your volume up, your enthusiasm up, hustle up. It's easy, you know, in these markets to get down, demotivated, so I'm going to find the strength within. Whatever does that for you, whether it's exercise, meditation, it maybe care-giving, giving to somebody or philanthropy or whatever it is, that really fires you up and keeps you energised and mission-centric. I think persistence and energy is such a super important ingredient, as is planning, and communication, they're super important tools.

You've got to know where to hunt, and what's the right fit for the customer. No point in trying to sell something that doesn't fit, suit somebody on the other side of the table, on the other side of a Zoom conference. And that's the planning. You know the questions and answers to determine if somebody or an organisation is likely to buy or appropriate to buy. Whatever your service is or goods are. I see a lot of sales people that just run hard at the wall.

But there's not a lot of strategy and quality, deep thinking in their approach.

Elliot

You raise a really good point there because that target market stuff is critical when people are fatigued and when people are stressed and worried about their numbers, or clients have dropped off or they're difficult to get hold of. You know, the natural reaction is to just run into that brick wall as you describe it. So it’s “I used to deal with company X or I used to deal with those markets. If I just try harder, I'll eventually break them, because that's what I know.”

And unfortunately, many companies and many sales people just need to look with a blank sheet of paper, literally. Go for a walk with the dog and start to think in your head about forgetting who you already deal with and start thinking about who actually needs you, right now.

Matt

It's a good point. I mean, I've always encouraged every senior executive I've ever worked with and work with today to take half a day out of their week. So if we say a five day week and literally take half a day and go for a walk, take themselves out of the noise, I think we all get very busy with noise.

You know, we're now at the behest and victim of our phones and emails and instant messaging, and all these platforms that require us to respond. We run at 24/7 activity levels, and it's very busy and very noisy, and a lot of it's very tactical. And what we don't, none of us do enough of is, a half day stop planned. Think, you know, regroup sort of concept. And, you know, whether a long walk around the park, even just meditating for 10 minutes a day quietly in the corner and trying to shut your mind off.

I think that's when the gems come. So I'm a massive believer in taking yourself out of the loop and having some quality thinking time. I really think it makes you a better manager, a better executive, absolutely. And away from the screen and away from the home. Schooling troubles and the squabbles with the spouse during the day and the constant phone beeping that goes off. There's a lot of sales leaders that think they have to be on all the time because they're doing it for the right reasons.

They're trying to support their teams, and they're making themselves available. But what they're not doing is looking after themselves. Yeah, you've absolutely got to look after yourself. In order to be an effective tool, you've got to get the balance right. It's no good spending 80% of your time planning, and not actually doing calls, being resilient, being outbound and, actually going out there and having a crack at the market and trying to drum up business.

Conversely, you can't just hit the phones as it were, without proper planning. So it's about getting the mix right. I think a lot of sales teams particularly just run hard, but they don't stop to think. Where is the low hanging fruit? Where's the sweet spot? Where is the likely-to-buy customers? You've got to determine who's a non fit customer and either walk away for them or not approach them in the first place because not everybody is going to buy your good or service.

Elliot

Absolutely.

And it's been a while since the SEEK days. Obviously, which is everyone knows, is a great Australian success story that you co-founded with Paul and Andrew. But what a lot of people may not know is the adversity that you had in some of the early days and how you fought through that. So there was no Covid 19, but SEEK wasn't a guaranteed success, and there were significant hurdles when you're trying to create a market. It would be worthwhile just talking about that so that people have a perspective of this wonderful ASX-listed company that's storming around the world but don't necessarily know what was behind that, especially in the early days. Perhaps chat to us about that a bit.

Matt

I think our biggest challenge was initially, and a lot of your listeners may experience this today is we had two things going against us, or two massive challenges. One was we were disruptive, and that meant we were a new way of doing things. And, you know, we're creatures of habits, and we like low resistance. We like to do what we're used to or in the habit of doing.

You know, what we have formed habits around. So trying to on-board customers to SEEK, we're saying, Hey, don't do things the way you've been used to, the way your processes are set up to do. The way the organisation's been organised around doing something, do it in a new way, and that's a big ask for any size company. So we really had to sell them on the benefit and the vision. The other thing is, you know, we were fighting some big, powerful companies at the time. News Corp, Fairfax, two large media organisations and Monster, the big US job site at the time, and we were a nobody brand in the early days, I mean now SEEK is sort of synonymous with jobs.

We've done a great job on marketing in positioning the brand, and it's very, extremely well known. But back in the early days, you know “Hi, I'm Matt Rockman from SEEK. I'd like to talk to you about talent acquisition…” It’s like, “Who's SEEK?”

So we didn't have any cut through with our brand, and our brand didn't help us at all. We were an unknown quality, so we had to sell them on the vision and be about the credibility of our company. And that we would be around next week and certainly next year that it was worth them putting the effort in and giving it a try, and this new way of doing things.

So I'd say again, persistence was a very, very big part of it. We had to get up each day and get a lot of knock backs. Just keep going and as I've said earlier in the podcast Elliot, planning, knowing who to target, trying to find the more likely and convincing them to give us a try.

Elliot

And what you all did well was you were clinical about that. It got to a point where it's like we just do not have the time to service or try and sell to accounts that don't get us.

And when you got resistance from people and it was deep resistance, it was like, “Well, if you don't get it, it's kind of your problem.” Not so much in an arrogant way, but in a confident way that said, “We believe in this thing and we'll talk to people who are more like minded and potentially more open about what it can deliver for them.

Matt

That's right. There's always someone out there who's open to new ideas and willing to listen. It's just a case of trying to find them.

Elliot

So when you look at businesses now to invest in and you're on a number of boards and you invest in a whole range of different industries, what do you look for in companies, in people, in leadership today compared to, say, 10 years ago?

Matt

I don't think it's changed. You know, honesty and integrity is key. I'd take good culture and value attributes over experience and smarts every day. I mean, you want them all. You know, you'd love the trifecta of  a great quality, value based person who's both smart and had great experience.

That's the unicorn, everything working in your favour. And you don't always get those attributes in somebody. But I'd suffer experience, meaning so I'd go without an executive or a manager or a higher without experience over good fit, good values, good integrity, you know, and enough smarts to be self sufficient and work their way through problem solving. Which sales is, and you know, they can build experience over time on the job, or you can teach them.

Elliot

Exactly, we can teach them. Why do you think it is, though, that so many recruiters and so many sales leaders get hung up on the resume of having done this work in that industry and sometimes in a very specific role or else they don't look at them?

Matt

I think it's easier in a lot of respects for recording, because it's easier to sell into the client, right, even though it may not be the right thing. So it's a bit of laziness on behalf of recruiters that makes sense, and I just want to get their fee. But in the case of sales leaders, I've seen leaders that go “Unless you've got 10 years of experience selling these widgets in this market, I'm not going to look at you.”

Elliot

And yet, I’ve coached so many people around the region, I see some people, but it's just fantastic, especially at C levels filling.

Matt

I agree with that. The only caveat I'd put on that Elliot is, I like to find people who have had allied experience. So taking somebody who sold a widget and then asking them to sell service. It's a different style. It's a different approach, you know. It's a different methodology, and some people can't cross that chasm. But, you know, if you, for example, you're selling houses and you've sold cars for 20 years, then you know, yes, you need to modify and pivot a bit in terms of your approach and the product high price point versus volume, all that sort of stuff.

But you can cross that divide. Somebody with the right aptitude attitude can sort of make that leap. I think if somebody has been selling software, does that raise your main experience? Lend them well to selling houses? I'm not so sure you know, the attributes have to line up.

Elliot

Sure. There has to be some connection there.

Finally, before I let you go, Rocco, hopefully we're out of lockdown soon, and obviously some markets globally are already opening up. I was watching the Premier League the other night, and it was just amazing to see 60-70,000 people in the stadium live.

And who knows where our future is in Australia to get to that stage. But what do you think people should be doing now? What company leaders should be doing now to prepare for us coming out.

Matt

Oh, look, it's a really good question. You know, I've been looking at the mental health and culture and motivation levels of our teams and seeing how sort of match fit they are. You know, I think executives have to check the pulse of their teams and how they're feeling. And people have suffered, particularly in this country and in other parts of the world, but particularly this country with the extended lockdowns.

You know, I think management has to really work with their teams and not just expect to hit the magic on button, and everybody is back to normal. I think it's going to be a glide path, and you've got to encourage, motivate, work with and lift up your teams because I think it's a transition.

Elliot

I think a lot of people have been smashed by this, 100% agree, and that's what you've done in your career. You've always thought about the team, about how they can improve, how they can deliver based on their own personalities and being authentic.

And you've always been there to support the human being behind the role.

It's been great to catch up with you and, thanks for being part of Selling in a Time of Corona. I'll let you go and have your, you know, 2.5 minute walk, or whatever you're allowed to do, and I'll catch up with you soon.

Matt

Thanks. It's been fun, mate.

Elliot

As always, Matt puts people first. He did it when helping to build a company like SEEK, where success wasn't guaranteed and he's doing it today with over a dozen new enterprises and organisations.

People in sales are human beings. Be kind where you can and if you're a leader, be even kinder to yourself. The chase for results will still be there in the morning regardless of how you treat your colleagues. So why not choose the human approach while you pursue those pursuits?

Remember, your ears are safe. Matt and I recorded the entire podcast during a cold shower. Take care of yourselves, until next time.

Season 3 Episode 3

Deadly Sins of Sales – Nick Verykios

 

Creative opening - Unstoppable - Sia

“I'm unstoppable
I'm a Porsche with no brakes
I'm invincible
Yeah, I win every single game
I'm so powerful
I don't need batteries to play
I'm so confident
Yeah, I'm unstoppable today”

 

Introduction

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

My special guest today has proved unstoppable. For decades. He's built businesses from scratch to multimillion dollar success stories.

ARN’s IT Industry Hall of Fam, there isn't much he hasn't seen in building, growing and developing revenue in a highly competitive environment. Yet what stands out is his heart, his soul and his eclectic background. He's been a professional musician, a mentor to many in and out of the business world, championed mental health causes and set up orphanages as just one example of his contribution back to the universe. As you'll hear, he has great insights into ethical professional selling and sales leadership. It's possible his only key wasted opportunity was spending too much time listening to this podcast as he was building his own house.

That's the part I envy the most. I'm so spatially challenged. I do a triumphant lap of honour around the house if I managed to change the battery in the TV remote.

So prepare for a dive into overcoming some of the deadly sins of sales from a guy with the life stories to back it up and a spiritual centre at the heart of it all. Here is my chat with Nick Varykios.

Elliot

Hello, Nick. Welcome to Slling in a Time of Corona. Great to have you on after all these years. What's been happening in your wonderful world?

Nick

Hey, Elliot. Thanks for having me on , I really appreciate it. I've been busy. I've been busy, occupying myself with things that I didn't think that I would have to be, busy in a world of Corona with a lot of work that I'm doing with mental health, and looking after very old, very old parents, among other things, as well as just working on the iasset.com  brand and building that. I've found myself ridiculously busy because there's plenty of occasions to be busy.

Elliot

Yeah, And you've led an eclectic life. So it's no surprise that you're involved in so many things. And I wanted to delve into that today for everyone where, given your rich experience, creating and selling companies and being successful, I'm going to throw some of my pet subjects at you. And I'm going to get your thoughts about these areas where I think sales could be a lot easier. And sales leadership could be a lot easier if these things were addressed. So I'm just going to throw these topics at you and get your top of mind rich experience ideas on the fly.How does that sound?

Nick

That sounds fantastic, man. And I'm very grateful and very humbled to be able to participate. Like I told you, we had a chat before and I spent the weekend building,and found time listening to your words and your listeners words. So if I can add to that, I'll come through.

Elliot

I should say you should get a life if you spend your weekend listening to this podcast. Well, isn't that so many of the building about There you go.

Nick

I'm Greek. Funny story, I building houses since I was nine. In those days, I think they called it a learning experience. And I think today they call a child exploitation. But I told you if I told you, I've saved hundreds of thousands of dollars in doing it myself. I've probably underestimated.

Elliot

That's great to hear. All right, let me throw the first of my pet subjects for you, Nick. The end of quarter in the IT industry or in financial services industry.

And believe it or not, creeping into the professional services world. End of quarter comes along and all the strategies get thrown out. All of the deals get turned over. Someone panics, puts on their brown pants and says to the sales team “All right, guys, get out there. Drop your pants by 2030%. Tell people who are not even ready to buy that they should be buying”, putting pressure on and removing all the great trusted advisor status that they have. And you wonder why the client treats them as a commodity supplier and why that relationship is damaged.

So of all the interactions you've seen with sales leaders, what are your thoughts on this wonderful behaviour?

Well, it's a huge area of concern. And for me, an end of quarter or an end of financial year or, H1 or H2, they're just points in time to measure, to assess and then to change behaviour, change strategy. It's not a time to get panicky and do that stupidity that you were referring to, because what you're doing is reacting to a target.

It has nothing to do with the customer. The customer doesn't care. The customer’s actually offended. So if you’re not delivering, delivering on the customer success that they're expecting of you, that you sold to them. Once you know you're not managing any lifetime value of the assets that you sold them, you're not doing any proactive management of the investment that you forced someone to make in your product, so it's going to throw them. They're not part of that process. So how they're going to respond or react favourably to that process?

In fact, you’ll probably start doing a damn good job of losing them, and it stands to reason what I've just said. It stands to reason. So the fact that it actually happens is because of another problem. And that is that a company doesn't have longer than three months in its sales team in the execution of its sales team and the occasion of its sales team to be able to deliver customer success. It's not even on the radar, and it's probably in many instances, because of a reporting requirement rather than a flow of sales.

A good salesperson doesn't give a damn. What the reporting does is give them an estimate of how they're going, not an occasion to respond to a gap or something. There's a bigger story around targets as well, which we might get to later. But it's, you know, in effect, when you're acting like that, it's all too late. You know, the customers already made decisions, and they probably have made decisions with better reps that don't put them in that unfortunate but also embarrassing situation because there's no discretionary spend at the end of the order.

So what are you trying to achieve? You know, basically what you're saying is I'm asking you for a favour because I've messed up. And how is that the sound? How's that going to sound to you as a customer? You know, they spend with you as an outcome. It's already done, the plans are already done. Everything has already happened. So if you see it from the point of view of an installed base motion, in other words, your customer and what they have to do, you work on landing deals.

And if and of course, all you're doing is trying to land a deal, you've lost, you've already lost because you haven't worked on after they've spent money with you. How do you help them invest further so you can get a better return on the investment they've made and these proposals that should be there. How do you also look after what they've already sold you in terms of renewals and things like that, what they've already done. It also had to exist as an asset when it's no longer valuable.

There's plenty to do with a customer. If you're sitting there having better than a cup of coffee with them and the end of the count, it doesn't really matter, because what you've already done is extracted as much from that customer as you could, based on a proposition that says I'm going to sell you value now, that's value that they can't do without. So if you haven't presented something that they can't do without, you're not going to be able to pick up that at the end of the quarter.

Unless, by some miracle you can present them with something that they can't do without two days out of the quarter. And it's impossible to ignore. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a response to a target and the desperation if I'm not mistaken.

Elliot

Yes, absolutely. So why do you think it is that sales leaders don't have the courage to have this negotiation with their regional bosses, whether it be in Singapore, the US or the UK or wherever they are, and have the courage to negotiate and communicate with their senior sales team around these targets and these behaviours well? I would not have the courage to walk into a bullfighting ring because I'm not a bullfighter.

Nick

They don't have the courage to do that because they're not. Sales leaders go on. If they were a sales leader, this would not be on the agenda. If they were a sales leader, what they would be doing is looking at the targets and saying, “Look, I've got 25, 10, 20 sales professionals that I manage. They've done everything they possibly can to execute on the strategy, execute on the plan, sell the products that were given to represent and do all the things that are necessary in a plan to be able to achieve. Everything has been done. We're still short. Maybe the target was wrong, buddy. Maybe the target was wrong. Can we have that conversation?”

That's when you need to be able to assess that and say, “You know what? Someone pulled a number out of there wherever, and it's not relating to the actuality of excellence in performance.”

Many of them would say, “Nick, that's what I'm given from the U.S. So what can I do?”

That's the point. If you're a sales leader, you can present back and inform the US that that number which was created, and I know this for a fact which was created from some extrapolation of the financial formula that says it's got to be this, as opposed to be a reality because they don't even read the business plan to see what can be executed and what can be achieved. And a true sales leader will have already looked after that. They will already have worked that out. And the only thing that they need to manage as a sales leader if they've already worked that out is, “Are my people executing with excellence?”.

And that's the conversation, not whether you missed your target. But “What are the gaps in your ability to execute with excellence ?.” And by the way, the number is an outcome? Yes, I've lived that all my life, and it's worked 100% of the time. But I've also had to sell companies and work in the corporate world and navigate the corporate field. It still works. It still works. If you've got the courage to do it, it's because you deserve the title that you're given of a sales leader and it's all that.

Elliot

No, we're on the same page with that. So while we're talking about courage, the other thing that pops up in my soup is the fact that when people are looking at deals and you look at it from the outside in, as any good consultant would do and you say, “Hold on, you want this company to spend, you know, $123 million with you and you don't have a single C level executive on the client side that's even looking at this. Everything's bottom up. So, I'm just gobsmacked still that we get to C level too late.

Or then people are relying on their mid level managers, mid level clients to sell their message up the food chain, which doesn't happen. And the sales cycle takes 12 to 18 months and people get frustrated and tired. And at the end of it, some of those deals are lost, so no one wins, and I'm still getting my head around why there is this reluctance all these years later for companies to institute team selling and work as a team and get to C level early and often.

Nick

Well, there's a couple of facts.

Number one. Whatever you're selling is going to be some kind of expense that needs to be approved by someone at C level, or will sit on the balance sheet that needs to be approved by someone at C level. Either way, it needs to be approved. Therefore, the first thing that you have to do is establish budget and you’ve only established budget when you actually can present a proposal and sell at the very beginning. That says, this is something you can't do without, And I'm just showing you the dramatic increase in revenue or the dramatic decrease in costs.

Perhaps both. If it's that good technology or product or an investment now, now that we've established that, I'll go and work with whoever it is in your organisation to fulfil that to deliver on that, no one's going to spend money with you unless they budgeted for it. They're not going to get budget, unless they've had some level of initial approval. It's a sales process that's been lost, and there is what's been lost because people have created relationships at the execution level. The execution level does not determine the return and the technology.

They determine the quality of the delivery. You do have to have it, too, but you have to work out who you're going to be talking to first. Out of 100 conversations, 10 of them will work on those, when the person who controls the money isn't some idiot. It's some person who is responsible for return on investment.

Elliot

So do you think it's a case where people in their deep, darkest moments say, “I actually don't feel confident talking to the CEO or the CFO”, or they don't feel they have the skills or they're worried about burning the relationship at execution level?

Nick

Well, that's a really good, such a good question. I think it starts with, “Do I have something to give you that you can't do without?” If the answer is yes, it has nothing to do with anything other than being able to deliver that to you, so that you hear it and there is a skill involved in that. There is a skill involved in that, and it's not taught often enough. It's not. We have 1000 books, you know. What's the latest book? The challenges are that this, the disruption that you know, the this or that.

It's all over the place. But where is the one, and there's your course, you sell this, which is wonderful, and it’s why I love what you do. Where is the amplification of the idea that I'm going to give you something you can't do without? Because the reciprocal of that Elliot is, I can't not listen to you. Because if I don't, then I'm not doing my job. Well, so I want a whole bunch of people who are going to present you, and I don't care who they are. I don't care how polished they are, how snazzy they are. I don't care what their history is. I don't care how long they've been in the game for, if they have a goose that's going to lay a golden egg in my organisation. I will listen to you. Okay. So how are you going to make me listen to you now? That's a skill that needs to be taught. Yeah, and I spent a lot of time coaching people, and it works. Which would, you know, if I've got something that I know you need, I'm going to find a way for you to hear it.

I'm not going to be embarrassed by my tenure or my title or my anything. All right. I am duty bound to find a way to make sure you hear it. You're talking about taking responsibility so that the right people hear this message and that takes ownership. And it takes a business mindset rather than a sales mindset that says, “You know, I'm derelict in my duty if I don't get this heard. So if it gets heard at C level and they don't like it for whatever reason, so be it.

And then you move on to somewhere else, but they can hear it. They don't think that it's something they can't do without, absolutely something that they can't do without, that's on you. Thank you. Who you are, that's on you. And then there is a learning opportunity that presents itself. If I had the cure for Covid and I presented to you and you didn't hear me, yeah, you're responsible. So it's your fault. I've got the cure.

If I can't get to listen to me, that's on me. So what skill isn't required to do that? All right, we can talk about what skills are required to do that till the cows come home. There's plenty of opportunity to invest in that, but I have to start with something that you can't do without. I have to have that first and foremost. 90% is that, 10% is getting you to hear me. That's right, it's not the other way around. So when we listen to the client, my next issue, one of my little favourites is that when we finally speak with a client and they tell us what they want politically, emotionally, structurally and technologically, and people hear it and then come back to the business and miss half of that because they'd rather sell them widget X instead of widget. Why?

And it's just it's just amazing how often that happens. So you spend all the time diagnosing what's going on. The client tells you they want to. People want a green one and a blue one, and what gets fed back to the business through their own filter is, Oh yeah, they're really keen on the purple one because we sell them.” Yeah, well, that's  not a sales professional. That's not a sales professional. We can give them 20 other names. When you find occasion to be in front of the customer and they talk about all this stuff, if they talk, when they're talking emotionally right there, that's the problem that you get solved.

Everything else, they're actually bragging. They're actually telling you why they exist. And that's fine. Good on you. Well done. Of course, I'm your biggest fan, but if you miss the emotional bit, you missed the problem that you have an opportunity to solve. And if you've got something that solves that problem in your bag of solutions you're in, if you don't, “Can't help you, man”. And there lies the rub, in industries like financial services and that are filled with very rational thinkers.

The people that have gone to university and they've studied engineering or finance or commerce, and they think that these are rational based decisions, and then no one kicks it out of them. In their early days as they're growing their career and they wake up. I suppose in their thirties, and all of a sudden they hit a brick wall because they haven't learned how to emotionally tap into the people with whom they meet. And I know you spent a huge, huge part of your life understanding the psychology and the emotional debts of human beings.

Elliot

That will be interesting sharing with people your two or three key takeouts about how important it is that these jobs are taken seriously and that it's almost, it's almost the job of sales professionals and business people to actually have that psychology is front of mind, and then the rational stuff simply backs it up.

Nick

Yes, you're right. And I should I should preface all this. But what I'm telling you is my experience and what I've seen to be high impact variables for sales success.

Everything that I've talked about has happened, and it's worked, and it's worked for me and my teams and the companies that I’ve built and the people who are responsible for me to lead them in the right way, and it's worked, so I'm happy to share all those high impact variables. But to essentially leave and bring it back to the last thing that you asked me. It's about one thing, and that is an innate compulsion to serve, it's servitude. If you have an innate compulsion to serve, what you've done is solved.

The big question and that is the question of purpose. And the question and the meaning of life is to find meaning, and meaning is to serve. And if you have that kind of DNA compulsion, you can't help yourself. You will be an amazing sales professional and amazing sales leader. I've seen them all, and that's what they have. And it’s a compulsion, compulsion to serve, servitude is, it's your superpower and it's not like you either have it or you don't or some people have it or some don’t.

Or sometimes it's the human condition. It's the creative impulse. The Big Bang a billion years ago hasn't stopped banging. What we need to do is continue to create, and we create by serving, making something happen that wouldn't otherwise have happened if you didn't turn up. That's the state that you've got to start from. That's the excitement about successful sales, being able to do something that they would never have done if it wasn't for you, and they benefited so much from them that you're in. And that's very exciting when you think about the people that you and I know, that have been very successful both personally and professionally in their lives.

In other words, they like who they are. They enjoy their work, and clients love them because of what they do. It is around sublimating that ego and the ones that struggle from job to job and flip around and complain about money. Or this company doesn't have the right products or has a debate with a client on an intellectual level about what it is they're trying to achieve. Rather than focusing on the client, I find that a lot of those people, they struggle in their personal lives and they struggle in their professional lives moving around because it's all about them.

And that ego gets in the way of them delivering what is so obviously based on what you said. And I think that insight is invaluable to anyone listening to this, that if you take from this that your client is just one party that you can serve and get paid to serve them well and focus on their needs, the whole world opens up. Yeah, look, it's so obvious. Today if we were talking about the client and servant, I still call it client/servant relationship in the seventies. It was completely different in the eighties and the nineties.

It was good. We're now in 2020/2021. And the client loves you because they can't do without you. It was the same in the seventies and the eighties, nineties because of different things. Now, you know, like in the eighties, the client, the client loves you because they can't do without you because you gave him a good bloody time. We remember that state. I'm old enough. Don't know about you, but I'm old enough to remember.

Elliot

Absolutely.

Nick

So that's what it takes now is a return on investment, a return on working capital because the client is getting judged on that. The client lives or dies in their organisation as the buyer, based on the return of working capital or the return on expenses renewed or whatever you want to call it.

But the return on investment. They're going to love you because you give them the biggest return on investment as opposed to anyone else. Number one. You have to have the right product or service that's going to be able to deliver on that. So work for a company that can do that. And number two, you don't have this ridiculous ego that says that I don't serve anyone. Well, you know what? If you're in sales, that's all you do. You are a servant to someone. That's all you do.

And the greatest sales people are the greatest servants that just happen to make a billion dollars. But they were the great servants.

Elliot

So last question, Nick, before I let you go, what do you think happens over the next five years as we come out of Covid at some point, and clients are going to be far more judgmental, in my opinion, about the way they were treated during Covid? What do you think is going to happen to salespeople, sales teams and the numbers of people that are in these roles?

Nick

If you held a relationship with your client based on an emotional threat. I'm not really here to sell you anything,mate. I just want to know how you are. I haven't seen you for ages ….all that stuff, right? How you feeling? What's going on? I'm really interested in how you're feeling right now and all that and have an intellectual conversation around that. All right, you're going to win. You're going to win because you've kept them in a circle of trust.

If you haven't done that, hurry up and start doing it because we're going to get out of this pretty soon and your time to do that is running out. Now, here's the thing. I started by talking about customers successfully. If you're not looking at your existing customers because you're trying to find a way to hit that target by getting new customers, you're screwed because someone else has looked after that customer. And while you've been looking for new customers, someone else has looked after that.

Elliot

Great insights, Nick. It's been great chatting. We could probably keep going for another half an hour, but I need to let you go. Thanks so much for being part of this. I think the key thing here is that the truth is out there. Whether you want to face it or not, we either have the courage to face some of these things or not. And we either have the heart to do these things or we don't. And when you do it, the opportunity is just huge.

So thanks again for being part of Selling in the Time of Corona. We’ll catch up when we're free at last.

Nick

Well, thank you, man. I'm grateful for the opportunity and looking forward to seeing you face to face.

Elliot

Nick is just terrific at calling out what sales leadership should be all about.

With that in mind, let me leave you with this fabulous piece from the comedic animators at XtraNormal on Managing Sales Compensation Plans.

 

Creative Outro - Managing Sales Compensation Plans by XtraNormal

 “Hello, Brad. You said you had some questions about your new compensation plan.”

 “Yes, if I read it right. It looks like you have doubled my quota and cut my territory in half.”

 “Well, Brad, last year you made more than me and we were over the commission budget, which put my projections out of whack.”

 “Isn't the point to sell more than you expect and build the company with new revenue? “

 “Yes, but we need to even it out among all the sales people and territories. Otherwise, my projections and business plan do not look accurate. You can understand when one person does better than everyone else, it makes everyone else look bad. So I have to adjust things, so it looks like I know what I'm doing. “

 “So where does this leave me as part of our team.”

 “Brad, now you will be with the rest of us, not burdened with those high tax rates and wasting time wondering what to do with all your money. “

 “Well, thanks for solving that problem for me. So why would I stay here and endure all this? “

 “Well, if you play your cards right and learn how to do powerpoint and spreadsheets better, you maybe, just maybe will someday have a small chance of sitting where I am.”

 “I think I would rather be waterboarded. “

 “Great. So we are on the same page with the new Comp plan. Also, we have a new rep starting today who will be taking half of your territory. Will you show him around and introduce him to your account? I have a very important off-site where we are planning the next sales meeting and team building activity.”

 “Yeah, sure. Why don't you just direct deposit half my income into the new rep’s bank account? “

 “Great, Brad, I was going to do that anyways.”

 “And now, with your support, it will be legal. So we are on the same page and can go on with our lives. So go out there and crush it. I'm just glad I can help!“

 

Elliot

Remember, your ears are safe.

Nick and I recorded this entire podcast wearing full PPE to build his water fountain.

Take care of yourselves, until next time.

Transcript - S3E4 - Stories That Sell - Elly Temelcos

 

Creative opening

My Once Upon A Time - Dove Cameron (Lyrics) [From Disney's Descendants 3]

“Life is not a storybook but life unfolds in chapters
Turn the page and start to make amends
There's no pre-written guarantee of "happily ever after"
Step into your greatness before your story ends
So when your story ends

They'll say once upon a time a girl flew higher
Once upon a time she made things right
Once upon a tie that binds
She changed her heart
To change their minds
That's got to be my once upon a time

This once upon a time
I'll finally see my once upon a time
This time”

Introduction

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between.

And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot

Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a far flung kingdom, called Melbourne, and years before the despotic king locked down the homes, the businesses, the playgrounds and the restaurants, she built an amazing career. This raven haired polymath worked in marketing and communications, and product management. Until one day, on a cold winter’s morning, she realised she had a gift – she knew the secret of telling stories. Real stories in corporate life that gripped and  grabbed customer’s attention. Suddenly a big giant emerged – Microsoft, and the giant said ‘ Can you tell a story about our video conferencing products (and this was long, long ago when the word Zoom was just a sound sports cars made).

The filmmaker went to work -day and night, night and day, without food, for Uber Eats was not yet invented.

‘Oh how do I tell a story about technology that is so much more interesting than boring features, bits and bytes, ‘ she cried.

She put both her thinking caps on and this is what she created for the big giant:

[ cut to https://organic.film/projects ( LYNDEN AGED CARE) ]

Elliot

A lifetime later, we now know that little product also became a giant, we now know as Teams.

Not satisfied with simply being wonderful at combining her filmmaking prowess with her corporate background, our coffee loving heroine went on to further studies in Screen and Media and now is now doing her PHD in the narrative structures used in streaming TV and…Her own series is not far away.

So, I sprinkled some fairy dust, wiggled my nose and like magic, she appeared and joined me to discuss how you can get so much more out of the stories you tell to your customers.

Are you ready? Look behind you? Here she is …Elly Temelcos.

Hey, Elly, it's so great to have you on Selling in a Time of Corona. As you know, I'm passionate about storytelling in presentations, in pictures and in the sales world as a whole. And as a filmmaker, you’ve produced some amazing work that tell brilliant stories.

And to be able to pick your brains today on what makes a good story, the elements within it and how to capture people's attention away from the boring and the linear is a great privilege. So thanks for being part of it.

And I wanted to kick off right from the start with a couple of reasons why people don't tell stories. And one of the things that I see is this squeamishness where people say, I can't mention my clients or my clients’ journey with us without permission or they're worried about probity or some other stupid reason as to why they can't do something and the story doesn't even get told at all.

So from your experience of corporate storytelling, what do you see and hear from people when you're even discussing how to tell a story and in what manner?

Elly

Thank you, Elliot. It's a real pleasure to be here. Certainly, I think, storytelling is innate in all of us. You speak a lot about the hero's journey. The hero's journey, as you know, is a concept created by scholar Joseph Campbell. He wrote a book about it called ‘The Hero With 1000 Faces’ and that actually looks at mythologies all around the world.

He's found a pattern that all human narratives are variations of a great single story. So what's exciting is that we all respond the same way to these universal stories, everybody around the world. So that's terrific. And it's great to know what the elements are of the hero's journey, because, you know, you're going to hit a lot of those key moments with most people around the world. But when you think about it, if we respond the same way to these stories, well, the flip side of that is we all know how to tell these stories as well.

And we've got thousands of years of being good storytellers, so it's a shame not to use storytelling in every basic human interaction. So when you think about that, we're in a story right now, we've got Covid-19 is a huge story for us. It's a story of survival at the end of the day, but it's one of those stories that has its twists and turns, and it's a very complex story, but we're all living through it right now. So we are the heroes of our own story right now.

And if you want to learn how to tell stories, just put yourself in the seat of being your own hero or your own protagonist. And you'll realise once you put your storytelling hat on, you know there are obstacles, you have a goal. Your goal might be to survive or to get through the day or to get through your meetings. But there are obstacles, constant obstacles to your goal, and they can take many forms. So I think storytelling is so innate in us, and if you're not mining that fantastic tool, then you're missing out.

So I think it's very important for organisations to let go of their fears and look at storytelling as a fantastic tool to connect with their customers and to also persuade them that through the emotion of their story, to persuade them that whatever they have, there’s a solution that's solving a problem for their customers is important for their customers to at least listen to. So one of the things Elliot, that customers or people who are producing stories worry about, is that turning point.

So the turning point in the story in any film or book or presentation is where we jolt the audience interaction, or we twist it in some way and they get a shock. And that often translates into a part of a corporate presentation. Where there are pitfalls, there are downsides. There are issues with either staying with the status quo, or there could be some risks attached to even transitioning to the vendor’ solution that's being presented. And yet there are many corporates that won't even go near that twist, that plot twist or that shock or jolt because they're worried about something.

How do you handle that? I guess it comes down to some basics. In storytelling, you're always going to have a hero who we call the protagonist. You're always going to have the forces against that hero, which is the antagonist, And there are two of them are locked together in a battle, if you will. So the protagonist story, the story that the salesperson might be talking or describing would have a goal. There is a goal to the protagonist, and the antagonist gets in the way of the goal.

So I guess what's important is to, if you want to create a turning point is to set up that goal. So the audience thinks they're going along on this track. The turning point then takes them off that track and turns them right around. So I usually call it a major reversal where the story just takea this big left turn that you didn't expect in order to create that reversal. There's a lot of set up, so you have to, actually, I guess you have to create a situation where you think it's one story, and then it turns into something else, and that jolt is really important because that helps with the persuasion and it helps get your message across, and it's also interesting.

That's the other thing. It's not a boring presentation. It's not. Not a boring story, so I think what's important in many stories is to be okay with investigating what we call the forces of antagonism. These are the things these are the obstacles that get in the way of that hero achieving that goal, and they're really important. And they're part of life. We all have forces of antagonism. What's interesting, and in order for clients to feel okay with having things go wrong without their organisation ooking bad, is to look at all the different levels of these forces so they could be physical forces.

It could be illness or disease. It could be changes in legislation or policy. If in technology, it could be old, clunky systems that are desperate, you know, they're not working together, it could be staff shortages, competition, or the big one, which is security and hackers. It could be the tyranny of distance. You know, Australia is a perfect example of where distance is such an issue for organisations. It could be natural disasters, dramatic shifts in demand and supply, for example, you know, a government body releasing year 12 results all on the same day, and that whole burden it's putting on the systems.

It could be too much data, not enough time. That type of thing really helps to create these forces of antagonism. It's what the heroe’s up against. And if you use those and you create turning points that way, you know, there has to be a story arc. A lot of my clients have spoken about digital transformation. That's the big buzzword. But you can't transform if you don't start from somewhere. You have to start. You have to go from a bitter place to a better place.

And I think if you can use some of those or look for some of those forces that are working against you, that's very useful in building a really compelling story. The other thing I just want to mention is that the ticking clock is always a good one, and it's used extensively in film and television because it gives pace to the story and it’s telling you that this is going to end at some point, and it creates suspense and that suspense is a really untapped resource. Yes, suspense is critical.

Elliot

You've given some excellent examples there, and what I think about the suspense in corporate presentations, there simply isn't enough of it. And yet many of the scenarios that you've just talked about are ideal for creating that. And the other thing to potentially add to that is that when you create suspense, you can't just do it in a second and then move on. You can't just mention. oh by the way, your systems might crash and then move on to the good bits. You have to let that sink in.

So the audience feels that tension and feels that discomfort, just like we would in a potential murder scene or a ticking clock scene in a movie, right?

Elly

Absolutely, absolutely. And what you do, I mean a lot of my stories are only less than two minutes long. So you have to. You have to create a lot of those little layers in the story and be aware of them in order to keep your audience attached to it and and connected to the story. So with suspense, it's important to, you know, we talked about story arc, but it's important to know that your story has a beginning, middle and end.

It doesn't matter how long or short it is. It's still going to have that structure. And you set up your goal at the beginning, or you set up what we call a central dramatic question. It's like, what is the question hanging in the air? This story is the answer to and you'll get the answer at the end so that suspense is crucial in setting up that story. But alongside with that, the stakes have to be high, too. So the best stories are those of life and death, because that's universal to everybody.

Every human, the world understands that. And so high stakes are good. So when we're looking for stories, if we had to choose between five potential customer stories will always choose the one that's going to involve life and death. Because that's the most compelling. However, there are other types of stories that do justice that are important as well. But what they usually start that is, with human basic needs. So usually something to do with food, safety, shelter, procreation. All those basics. Usually the things that start the story, and it's usually something you can you can see, you can visualise.

It has to be in a concrete world, and that's difficult when you're talking about a product or service that is abstract. So I mean, what is the cloud at the end of the day? What is that? We can't touch it. So we have to look at how can we put this product or service out into the concrete real world? So that's why we set up characters so we can see what the characters are actually doing. The most important thing about stories. It's about action. It's about doing something, making decisions and going from one thing, one decision to the next.

So that's what compels us to actually watch. The story is, how is this character solving this problem?

Elliot

You raise a really interesting idea. There are so many corporate presentations that are a series of facts put into some kind of logical order, as opposed to what is compelling this story to get larger and more engaging. It is an action, as you say, and it's our job as presenters to compel that story. That too, right, something that is actually engaging the audience all the way through. And you know that leads us to the climax of the story.

As you know, so many corporate presentations and even videos end up quite drab. They end up with like a wet lettuce at the end in presentations just like, well, thank you for that. There’s  time for Q and A and even in videos it’s like a very simple call to action with a website or something boring like that. But the climax is so important, used to spend 20, 30, 40 minutes in a presentation or it might be a two or three minute video. Talk to us a bit about what sort of endings or climaxes we can have in a sales pitch and why it's so important.

Elly

Well, I mentioned that you know the three act structure, the beginning, middle and end. It's important to set that up. So the beginning sets up the world, and it sets up empathy for your character. Then you'll have your part two. You will have your obstacles, and then you'll have your crisis or your climax in your resolution. What's important is that you create rising action. The tension has to rise, so it has to get to that climax and then resolve from there.

The way I've structured my stories and I think you're right, I think you've got the product or service that's crucial to show, obviously, because that's the enabler. But what I tend to do is I use the basic format of a case study. So for those people who are familiar with case studies, you know that there will be the background, you know, we find out about the world of the customer, there will be a problem. Then the case study will go through and describe the implementation of a solution.

That's where the product comes in. Then there will be the outcomes and certain metrics, which are, I think, extremely important. And then there will be some benefits. And then now that we have a solution where we're going in the future, what I do with that is I take that basic format, and then I put it into the visual medium. So the way I structure it is, I create what I call a technology sandwich. So most of my videos are in technology.

So I book end the story with something human at the beginning and at the end, in the middle is the enabler or the solution or the product or service. So the human story is what bookends the overall story. And by doing that I create an arc which usually goes from isolation to community. So that's the human story, and I use not just the audio or the dialogue of the customer explaining what they did, but there's a visual aspect. So instead of just showing a standard B roll I used my bare role to actually create another story.

So I layer a second story, which is usually something a about a hero trying to achieve a visible goal. So the visible goal could be to save someone, to win something to escape from something, or to stop or prevent something. So I think that's important to actually see video, for example, and that's my medium is to see it as an opportunity to lay all these layer all these stories one on top of the other. So whilst someone speaking, at least you have something else you're seeing the illustration of what they're saying.

You're seeing a great example of what they mean and usually that human story is associated with the achievement of those goals, usually survival goals or something like that. And your human stories are terrific in corporate language, I would imagine. You know, we're talking about the impact of your special widget on employees upon your customers customer, upon the directors of that company, about the families of the people affected by that company, about the wider public or whoever is involved in it. And, you know, the fact that you concentrate on the impact on humans is so critical to the storytelling pieces.

Elliot

And most companies don't do this, they make their products the hero rather than the customer.

Elly

No, that's exactly right. And I think you've touched on something quite important is, I mean, from the get go, I didn't interview any of the sales people or any of the technology experts that were involved in from the supplier and that were involved in the implementation. It's all about the customer. What the customer says about your product is so much more powerful than anything you'll ever say.

So there's a recognition of how important is that customer. But you're also recognising that in B2B. There are many levels of the channel, lots of levels, so it's important to understand the concept of that so your customers can't survive without their customers. So it's important to understand all those levels. At some point, there's an ultimate end user of whatever solution you've provided. That's probably a consumer, and we're all consumers. So we get it. Consumers trying to solve day to day problems. So sometimes it's a case of not just my customer’s customer, but the equivalent of my customer’s, customer’s customer.

So one of my technology clients did a case study for their banking services client. So it was actually quite a complex solution to do with data. So how I humanise this is that by focusing on the banking service customers, so the banking services customers were people who are applying for mortgages. So people like you and I had to take it down to that level of basic human needs. The need for shelter, the need to be to have your own home so we can all relate to that.

So that's important to understand how that ecosystem works. And I think that is the missing link of so many corporate presentations and sales pictures and videos. There's that core human connection, is so important. If there are people listening to this right now, Elliot that are in sales or sales leadership role and they're thinking, this is great gives me some ideas about how to change my presentation. But, you know, I don't get involved in the production of these videos. And yet it's not that hard to do in some respects to create their own customer journeys, and the technology is there to do it.

They're probably thinking, okay, what do I ask my marketing people to do? What do I ask my support team to do? Or, in fact, the rest of the sales team? What can I do to get more of these great stories about what our customers are achieving with us using the approaches that you've taken? So what are your thoughts on that? I think salespeople are instrumental to identifying these stories, and I think if you have this storytelling lens on and you look out for stories that will be compelling as case studies or generally are stories.

You can actually take them to your marketing department and pitch those because I think as a salesperson, you own the relationship of trust. And I work very closely with sales people because they are my conduit to the interviews that I undertake with their customers. Trust is so important in getting customers to really open up and take their technology, and just be real. So what to look for? I think you need to look for stories. As I said before, anything that’s life and death.

It's always great. There are some natural heroes that work really well for stories, police officers, detectives, anyone in the armed forces or doctors. People who are involved in life and death situations always make better characters. This is why we have so many TV shows featuring these types of heroes. So looking for those types of stories are really good, but also just looking at metrics. I know that sounds boring, but seeing how the solution can make a difference to a client and the client's environment, and seeing that how that transformation occurs is so important, I think metrics put in the right place can be extremely compelling.

So that is evidence that the solution has worked. So if they can demonstrate that and if the customer is  at that point where they do have something that they've measured, then that's important and that can be very compelling. Put in the right place.

I agree. It's amazing how many people don't even go back to their clients and say, Hey, you know that thing that you bought 12 months ago? How's that going for you? Because we said you’d get some pretty good results from it and then we just bugger off and decided to go and sell to some other people.

And we left you alone. And don't even check back in to say, we said you’d get some pretty cool results from this and that there are 1000 stories just by revisiting what you installed a year ago to say, how's that going for you? People are too worried about, yeah, there was a delay in the implementation there were a couple of needles along the way and they get scared off. And yet there are missed opportunities for literally thousands of stories. When you go back and say, hey, is that working the way you want it to?

Good, then tell me a story about how it's been working for you and then can you share that with us? And then all of a sudden, you've got an evidence bank in the whole company across the entire sales team of a couple of 100 stories. You can share in videos in emails, in pictures forever and a day, and it's a really easy thing to do. Oh, I agree with you wholeheartedly because walking hand in hand with your customer is so important. If you've got a fantastic story, even if it has its bumps along the way, it is again the relationship of trust that your customer has watched you solve all those problems.

Why not talk about them? And I've seen organisations who have done this extremely well, whereby they will apply for partner awards and they need buy-in from their customer to be involved in those partner awards. They will tell the story about the solution. And when they're selected and they win the awards, both of them walk on stage and accept the accolade. And that is, if you don't do that, you've missed an opportunity. A fantastic PR marketing opportunity, sales opportunity as well. It does so much for your brand to be walking hand in hand with your customer along your journey through the ups and downs, because we know that's life.

That's how it goes. We can't always control everything. And then you can look at those things that go wrong and show or demonstrate to your market how you've overcome those challenges and become a hero of your own brand.

Elliot

Exactly. And that's what this is all about. The voice of the customer. It's our job in sales to enable that voice to be heard so that it becomes so much more interesting and compelling for your future customers. Elly, it’s been fantastic to catch up with you. Thank you so much for being part of Selling in the Time of Corona.

And I look forward to seeing your next video.

Elly

A pleasure, Elliott. Thank you so much.

Elliot

Well, boys and girls, did you like that story. You can see more of Elly's work at Organic.Film, or I can help you create that hero's journey in just one session so that clients will want to break out the popcorn. Just send me a note and I'll see it on my Batphone. You can also share this with your friends in marketing, PR communications, or sales and see what you can all do together to bring those tired, bored customers closer to you.

 

Remember, your ears are safe. Elly and I recorded this entire podcast whilst living happily ever after in Melbourne.

The end.

Take care of yourselves, till next time.

Transcript S3E5 - Couples, Covid and Clients - Dee Tozer

Creative open

Brad Pitt ( Mr and Mrs Smith )

Okay, I'll go first. Um, let me say we don't really need to be here. See, we've been married five years. Six, six years. And this is like a checkup for us. Uh, chance to poke around the engine, maybe. Change the  oil. Replace a seal or two…..

Marriage counsellor

Very well, then let's pop the hood.

Introduction

So someone ate a bat, apparently, and the world turned upside down. Hi, I'm Elliot Epstein and I spent the last 20 years of my life coaching, consulting, training and speaking about all facets of sales development, pitching presentations, negotiation, the C suite, sales calls and all of the various components in the sales cycle in between. And now we find ourselves in a world that's very foreign. Welcome to Selling in a Time of Corona.

Elliot

On that opening clip was the equally beautiful Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as Mr and Mrs Smith, meeting with a couples therapist to see what's really going on in their relationship. Apart from the fact that they’re both trained assassins secretly assigned to kill each other. Whilst I hope you and your significant other are not plotting to murder one another, there is no doubt that restrictions, lockdowns, working from home and home schooling are not natural conditions.

They cause stress, and in turn, that stress can manifest in your results, at work, in sales, in leadership or simply coping with the adaptability 2021 demands. I continue to mentor a number of very successful professional people. And despite that, there is no doubt that personal work relationships are currently more tense than Episode 10 of a Nordic noir thriller on Netflix. By the way, it's always the innocuous looking neighbour from Episode 1. So in a bit of a twist for this podcast, I decided to catch up with a couples therapist who specialises in helping professionals navigate their path through successful work and personal relationships.

Dee Tozer is not just a great therapist. She has a background in business, including being a CEO in the medical services industry, which is where we met when I coached the pitch for her business some time ago. Dee understands what straddles between corporate couples and family life and three decades later, having counselled over 4700 couples, there aren't too many scenarios she hasn't seen, especially for business professionals like you. So, grab a wine or a beer. Stick your earphones on, as we delve into the world of couples, Covid and clients. Here is my chat with the wonderful Dee Tozer.

Hello, Dee. di. It's so great to have you as part of the podcast because I've been wanting to get some insights into what's going on in people's lives at home and their relationships with their colleagues as well,  and see how that's impacting performance generally not just in sales, but across the corporate world. So tell me what you've been seeing out there in your role.

Dee

Hi, Elliott. Lovely to talk to you. Thanks for having me. So what am I seeing? Well, in the context of me seeing, I’m doing a minimum of probably 25 online sessions a week with couples where the high achievers in the main, are looking through the window of my screen into their homes and watching everything in a session.

So I see the tension between the ‘what needs to be done’, ‘what has to be done’, meeting to meeting to meeting online business pressure, pressure, pressure with all the other noise in the house and demands around them. And who's going to attend to them. So the most obvious thing that turns up that I see is irritability, very high irritability and intolerance and frustration. So from no space it seems like building space into the day that would have been there in an office where you might walk out.

This is probably pretty obvious here, but you might walk out to the tea room or the coffee machine or something. Or, of course, that's not happening unless you walk out from either an office into the fray, where the kids are at the table doing their home learning with the other parent, or you have to find some other way to get some space. So what happens is they don't do it. They stay. I'm finding with my clients. They stay locked in their room, and if they want a private consult session with me, they go and get in their car office in their car and sit in their car in the carport to get privacy from kids or whatever they're talking about.

So it's full on tension, no space, no relaxation. There doesn't seem to be a focus on needing to relax even the drive home or the commute to and from the office used to give some space to find yourself again. There isn't any. So that's what I'm noticing.

Elliot

So given the irritability Dee, what are you asking couples and executives to think about changing to get more of that space? More of that, that time to be able to focus on what they need to achieve?

Dee

Yes, good question.

Well, one of the things I'm doing, which is I'm actually looking at people's diaries without or scheduling without talking about, uh, breaching confidentiality. And I'm saying, Well, why do you have to have a meeting for that? So I'm actually getting them to look and say, Well, is this an in-person or an online face to face meeting? Do you have to be at that one? Could it have been handled by four emails? Could you have done it differently? Do we need to rock and roll to all these scheduled meetings so you don't breathe or do you go through and rule out, block out all the times?

So you give yourself some sense of well being in amongst it all and some family well being as well. So I'm talking to them about scheduling, taking charge of their own well being and then to project their own well being. Not their irritable, unwell, being onto their family around them and their dynamics. And often I'm obviously talking to a husband and a wife, but often they're both corporates. They're both working from home in high pressure jobs and their intolerance. So they're so fractious that I get them to hear and listen what impact they're having on the other person.

That then reflects back on them through reactivity. So it's just a loop, a chain reaction of consequences from not putting yourself first, really.

Elliot

So what are you seeing in terms of the disparity between female and male executives?

Dee

Well, that's an interesting one, and maybe pretty obvious, I don't know, but I'm seeing the males take or took over the home office, and the females were at the dining room table doing the home learning in the main. I have had some other switches of those rules, but usually if they're coming to me because they can't cope and they need help, that is the dynamic.

So then the guy is the man. Male is in his office. He can shut his door. He has all of his privacy. That's his space. Some of this is to do with positions in their corporate ladder. So if there's an inequality there, which there can be, and I'm not necessarily talking in inequality in the gender sense, but just between salary ranges and commitment to a career path. I have a story, if we've got time about a barrister and a lawyer, a lawyer going to the bar and one already a barrister, of a husband and the wife and how they got into a real mess last year. So you know, it's about grabbing our own space.

But the other person getting left hanging with the home learning and out at the dining table, still doing very important significant meetings on laptops. So what I did and do and still do and just did., on Saturday morning, I had a couple who we worked out that they could share their space better and rotate through hadn't occurred to them. So I said, well couldn't we do some sort of rotation? So they ended up deciding to do week by week rotating, and have had others rotate day and day about all morning and afternoon, about which is moving out of an office or changing some space into a better office but actually addressing the fact that you need decent space and equipment and everything around you and calm and peace to function absolutely.

Elliot

And I think there's there's an underlying resentment that goes on here. There's resentment at home with some of these issues. And I'm seeing resentment from executives back in the workplace. It's taken back into there. So as soon as a colleague does the wrong thing or people are not performing well, there's an irritability that's translating back into their work life. So if you take the sales leader, for example, they could be really irritable with their team because they're irritable at home. Are you seeing that sort of thing?

Dee

Yes, and I hear them talking about how they listen to each other. So one example is the two executives doesn't matter which the gender is. One listening to the other one having her or let's say it is, it's her sales meetings. We'll hear the husband is criticising her afterwards for being irritable or raising her voice or being too intolerant or criticising her performance on her calls on her meetings.

Elliot

That's fascinating. That's fascinating. So not only is it tight space at home, you get automatic critique from your spouse after your call on your poor performance.

Dee

That's just  … I shouldn't laugh. But just the fact that you've got your inbuilt coach that you’re married to or partnered with, is kind of funny because, you know, it's no wonder that there's there are issues.

Elliot

I've been coaching for 20 years and I can share with you that having coached thousands of business people, if I coached my wife, the feedback I get from her is not particularly positive. We do not take that because it feels like criticism, and it feels like a put down.

Dee

It almost doesn't matter how it's delivered. That's how it's interpreted in a marriage in a partner. We take anything that's feedback, and people can say, well, I'll take constructive feedback. Well, I do, but not from my partner. So, especially if it's a critique on performance, that's something that's really very subjective, and that normally you wouldn't know about. So normally hear the positive feedback when somebody got home from the office. Where you sit there and hear the gaps and the holes and pick on the holes so it starts wars.

And I've had 10 and 12 year old kids or the parents reporting to me. The reason they came was that the 10 or12 year old kids or the Dad say, we can't stand this like, you know, let Mom have a meeting. Dad, Dad, you know they don't have his meeting. It's okay. Why can't they go for a ride on his back now? Because he hasn't got a meeting athoughl he should have a meeting. It's like this intense microscope on the other person's business world, which wasn't there. Can't be there if you're not in the office.

It's like two people in the same business, in a sense, like a couple in the same business who fight. But it's a very different fight because you don't really know that other person's business like you know, your own business.

Elliot

So let's talk about the kids for a minute. You mentioned the 10 and 12 year old as an example, How is this affecting relationships with children? And in turn, affecting the parents, right?

Dee

Well, in my view of what I know, affecting the relationships with the kids, it's making the kids feel a bit torn, and the kids are ratty to a lot of them.

Some have gone to be too subdued because that's how they're coping. Mechanism is, but what it is is they are disconnecting or detaching from the parent interaction, which is tense. And then they come back in and offer suggestions. So we've got kids of that age. One little nine year old had a brilliant solution for one situation. Watching Mom and Dad, and they're coming in and trying to solve and settle it down to be the peacemakers themselves. It's interesting, interesting, trying to replicate. They can't stand it because they're not usually around so much of it intensely, day in, day out

Yes, and not only are they coping with their own issues of being isolated in Covid, they've now got to be peacemaker and referee at home as well. Well, they don't.

Yeah, well, they step into it quite easily because it's, so I guess so uncomfortable for them, then the ramification back then is each partner. A parent blames the other one for causing it. It's all blame. It's all blamed and accused of accusation. Based is what I see, because I'm only remember my groups are by a group that I see they're unhappy, madly happy ones.

Elliot

And I'm sure there are thousands of people that are coping quite well and enjoying their time together. Yes, besides the scheduling that you mentioned earlier Dee, what else are you recommending business couples do to get through these phases?

Dee

So I'm recommending one very simple thing, and it's to allow time for the other person, for each one to individually go and get some space. Whether it’s walking around the block, you know, a good walk, not together. But if some people want to go together, they go together.

The rule. There's a rule from my view, no work talk, not at all as they're walking around the block with their frustrations about their colleague or the one that didn't turn up to the meeting until 9:45 that was scheduled for nine. All the grizzles and all the offloading, venting, not on those walks. So I talked to them about how can you have some signals through the day that gives you some breathing space? And how do you actually manoeuvre into that if one's in higher demand than the other?

So the best way is to each take your space, each do it, and nobody is criticising here. Have seen couples arguing over you're only allowed half an hour space. I was here with the kids all that time, and I had to do lunch or whatever and you took 40 minutes. I mean, it's literally to that level of intolerance or stretched. Overstretched.

Elliot

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty crazy. There’s some really good insights, Dee. I'd like to finish off by talking about something a little different, which is about identity in Covid.

So let me describe what I mean. The world is changing very quickly, and when I say the world, the business world and that is that it's not just technological change, but certainly through the prism I look at and my listeners look at, which is about revenue generation and business growth. Things are moving pretty quickly if you're in a Covid accelerating business. You're flat chat trying to cope with that. If you're in a downturn or you're not going so well, you're under pressure to keep the hamster wheel running.

And as a result of that, the adaptability to changes, one of the biggest things that I see people struggle with, which is a constant in a lot of our lives. But, I'm seeing people that are really struggling with this adaptability because it challenges their identity. So who they thought they were as a salesperson, for example, or a sales leader is not what they have to be now. They might have been tough and aggressive and hustling, and now they have to be more empathic as a leader, and they have to be more conscious of their teams and coaching their teams.

And, you know, a lot of the work that I've done recently has really been about giving value and solace and ideas and fresh thinking back to the team because the sales leader believed in freshening things up. But yet others are struggling with adaptability because it challenges who they were. What are your thoughts about that?

Dee

Absolutely, a very sound observation from your part. Yes, it definitely does challenge who they were, and there's nothing more destructive. I think to self worth, a sense of self worth is to have our identity wobbled.

And we actually don't know what it is, especially if we've got a sense of defeat with it coming with it and even some small shifts in revenue. I mean, I actually have a couple sharing their revenue with me, which I'm not privy to so much and they'll tell me the small changes to see. And I'm not coming in from a business aspect what I can offer in how they can adapt around that significant mood shift that's come with a sense of defeat or failing, even when that is something quite small.

And when they get their relationship noise, the space between them settled down. they can look more objectively at it because when they're going down because they're feeling defeated or whatever, often they're much more sensitive to the partner, putting them down or feeling like that. So they go down, down, down, whereas in my role I can lift everybody and focus them on, they're all the positives between them, it's interesting how they then adapt better.

In my world it’s all about how the family and the couple unit keep buoyant, remain buoyant, adapt. And my old good old word that we're all talking so much about these days is ‘resilience’ and how to bounce back if there's a little bit of whatever it is, but that isn't addressing the question of the people whose businesses have had a serious downturn, who are all you know. It's heartbreaking. I'm talking more people who are struggling to adapt. Their adaptability is absolutely through reactivity to irritability, is what it is.

Elliot

Yes, so you're saying stay connected. If you're irritable, either because of work or especially at home, that's going to translate back into the workplace. If there was one thing that you would recommend for people to work on their resilience, apart from obviously gaining the space that you've talked about, what do you think that might be to lighten up?

Dee

I know that sounds a bit weak. So it’s to take some breaths, lighten up and think about about yourself for self care, but also to look and see what impact are you having on the other partner.

Because people are couples in my world, one partner or the other things they're entitled to say, That's not fair. You're to blame stuff comes in where I go. Well, what about we take a step back, get a bigger picture, take some breaths and think, how much does this really matter? Is this so important that we need to get bitter about it?

Elliot

I always like to throw a bit of humour in my articles and my training, and you see people smiling and people are missing that camaraderie around the office, and there's no banter in a home until it's encouraged.

Dee

And I actually give people words to actually say to have a bit of a jibe without offending just on lightweight things. And when they do that, this is being the whole family unit, the kids lighten up and everyone starts getting a bit lighter and funnier, and they can see the humour in it. So, yes, I do bring humour in all the time.

Elliot

Yes, it's critical Dee. It's been great to catch up with you. Some of these insights are fascinating, in terms of how we operate at home and be the direct connection to how we perform at work.

I'll let you go off. I know you've got another, you know, 10 sessions back to back because this is an ongoing issue.

Dee

Thank you for having me on Elliot. I hope it's helped.

Elliot

It has. Thank you very much, Dee. All the best.

So now you have a choice. Do you share this with your partner? Do you share it with a work colleague, or do you just keep it to yourself? As you implement some of these ideas, you have the power.

Remember, your ears are safe. Dee and I recorded this entire podcast whilst lying on the couch on comfy cushions with the Covid resistant smell of sandalwood and vanilla candles in the air.

Take care of yourselves, until next time.