S5E5 - The Ambitious Learner with Hannah Ajikawo

All right, we are live and welcome to the live recording of the surf and sales podcast, season five. We are excited. It is February of 2024. Scott, you are still feeling better finally after two weeks of COVID craziness.

I think, I think I'm almost back to normal.

Almost.

Almost.

So that means you'll be more grouchy or less grouchy at normal.

I. I should be more cheerful today.

That's good. That's good. Well, I'm glad to have you back. Been missing you, my man, and want to jump into it. We have a great guest joining us from all the way across the pond, Hannah Ajikawa. I hope I said that right. I know you gave me the enunciation. Did I blew it? Did I blow it?

I feel like Scott feels like he can say it better, but I think it's fine.

Okay.

Okay. Yeah, he kind of. He won there, Richard. I'll be honest.

That's okay. That's okay. He's. He's allowed to win every now and then. I allow it. So.

Hannah, do you want to, rather than me reading your LinkedIn profile, you want to tell people what you do, your company and all those kind of fun things, what you, what you're up to?

Yeah, sure. So last year I kicked off my consulting firm called Revenue Funnel, so CEO and founder of that. So put simply, it's go to market consulting firm that helps high growth companies or teams inside big organizations to convert more pipeline, ideally at high deal values. And the focus is really on helping companies to become more aligned to the evolving B2B buyer journey. And that's what I've created. So I'm really excited about that. And that comes off the back of 15 years in the trenches doing sales stuff and, and doing really well sometimes and terribly other times. And then figuring out, okay, I think I've recognized what the bad signs look like and what the good signs look like. Let me try and help other companies to, to avoid those or implement the good stuff. So, yeah, that's it really in a nutshell.

There's an interesting fact here that you may not know about, Richard. Hannah has probably worked for more consulting companies in some capacity than anybody we've ever met or talked to on this show. I don't know if you've, if you've studied her, her background at all, but she's worked at like a who's who of consulting companies. So my question is.

Yes.

What are some of the common mistakes and pitfalls that you've seen some of these consulting firms make and go Through. And obviously now as you're running your own firm, you intend to avoid those.

Yeah, no, that's a, that's a good, that's a good and interesting question. So thank you for asking it. If I think about some of the key themes, one that stands out would be that there's, there's a heavy reliance on. And I get it, there's a heavy reliance on network and referrals. And I feel like once that, that kind of disappears a bit, then it's like, oh, okay. So we have to actually, we have to create a go to market. We actually have to figure out our unique positioning in why we exist to solve particular problems or challenges. That's one thing I've noticed. The other thing is there's this very murky process for how clients are engaged. So it's a case of, okay, we've won some business. All right, like what, what comes next? Like what, what's our, our thing, our methodology. So where you have like the typical onboarding process and adoption process with a tech company, it feels a bit shaky when it comes to more in the consulting environment. So I see that a lot. And also there's this tendency to kind of get the short straw. So you might engage a consulting firm and be like, okay, like went through the process and it's good, but it just depends on which consultant you land with, which is going to be the, the way in which you, the, the outcomes are met. And that's a bit like, I think those are the three, three main.

Because not every consultant inside of those firms are made equally.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

What do you think makes a good consultant? Right. Because I, I think one, I think Scott and I can always use some advice on this. But two, I think there's a lot of people who moved into this space in the last 18 months and to your point, they kind of run through their referrals really quick, you know, and they get 6, 812 months of business and then all of a sudden, bam, they're like, now what? Right, yeah. Which is a whole prospecting thing. That kind of thing. But, but I'm curious too. What makes a good consultant Your mind on the revenue side for the, for the stuff we all do.

Yeah. So I want to kind of shift that question and just make some observations around the last few years. Right. So of course we've all had that. We all had that moment that Justin Welsh had. Right. Which is, oh my gosh, I want to go out and go and earn my own money. And Covid helped made us rethink our whole life. Right. And a lot of organizations have seen their revenue leaders leave and start their own thing. Right. People want to take the risk. Some people had no choice. So that's the first observation. Oftentimes consultants, they've come from my experience and I'm still learning from a real technical background. And they're like, I'm go out to do this technical thing with people. So sales and trying to find business is pretty new. Or they come from a revenue background. They're an ex VP of sales or CRO or whatever it is. And now they want to go out and be a consultant. So that's the first thing. Now what I noticed is what makes a good consultant is someone who realizes that once you start engaging with, with your, your target market, you actually have to be a rep.

You have to be the, the VP of sales, you have to be the customer success manager and you have to be support. And not many revenue leaders have the skill set to do those latter the support and the customer success. So they're good at the revenue thing. But when the customer's like, I've got feedback. I need this, I need you to slow down. I need that. I don't know, I don't know about that part. So that's what I've seen a lot of. And even having hired and support built my own team from the last company I was working when I was at Scaled, you can see where going interviewing so many revenue leaders for a role. I'm like, whoa, okay. I can see there's so many skills missing. That kind of nurturing account management stuff is just, it's just missing. So I feel like if you want to be a good consultant, you have to step back into the hat of I need to manage that whole customer journey and not just, just selling and doing some stuff that I like.

Scott just nailed me his. You know, there's lots of things I don't like to do.

I mean, me too.

Yeah.

Well, the account management part, that's very spot on for yes. Many, many people, including probably two thirds of the people on this call. At least.

Yeah. At least.

Yeah. I, I'm still thinking a little bit about.

What makes each consultant different and which, which makes them good. But how are we kind of evaluating good and, and this is maybe like an unfair question, but let's say Richard's out there, he's a good consultant, good at doing the job, but he's not earning. And Hannah's out there, she's a good consultant, but she is earning. How does somebody supposed to.

Make a decision or distinguish between these two characters. Right. When they're thinking about, about hiring and bringing on a consultant, does that come into play at all for you? Is that proof of somebody's.

Success or skill set one way or the other or is that a non factor?

Yeah, there's so many variables involved in that decision making. I actually created a guide for my website and just like just, just go and read it, do the exercise and then let me know if you actually need help. Because there are so many variables. So if you think about, and you guys will know this, you had a lot of examples around this with being in the sort of high growth SaaS and tech environment, right. When you've got companies at different stages of growth, so you know that they need a different skill set if they're bringing on someone fractional or a consultant, someone who's helped me go from 0 to 1 and 1 to 5 and 5 to 10, etc. So that's like some of the variables and then the other side is actually so two things that I look at. One is if you're evaluating a consultant, expertise versus speed, what expertise are we missing? How fast do we need it? And it's kind of combination of these two things that help you assess. What can we do internally? What do we need to outsource? So that's kind of like just that when it comes to the individual and what, what I look for, I want, I want someone who's a student of the thing, right? So we're talking about revenue leaders. So I want you to be a student of sales and someone who is really, it's not that you've read all the books, but you are constantly trying to look at what's happening, what's changing, looking at the data, looking at stats, talking to people, networking. Because you can't say that, oh, I did this thing five years ago and I helped this company do this great thing and now I can do that again. It kind of just, it may not work right. And you're not really paying your card in your favor. So it's someone that's a student of the game, someone who is, is, is not, they're not married, they're not completely married to things that they've done before. So they're, they're okay to put forward some suggestions. But take, take a kickback and say, okay, I'm not going to, it doesn't have to be this way. I see that there's an alternative way of doing this as well. For me today it's someone that considers something that I call the downstream implications of what they're rolling out. So if I, when I, if I think about, when I have interview consultants, I think about, we give a scenario and it says, okay, so what else does that impact and how would you think about that inside the work that you're doing with the client? And oftentimes they don't think about that. I'm going to roll out this new. I'm going to hire a whole team of AES. Okay, so what does that impact? Like what, how does that impact the rest of the business? Enablement, management, leadership? How many AES to each manager? All of these little things. So I try to look at those things but there's. The list is long. I don't know like where should we, what should we dive into further? Because it's, it kind of, it's quite extensive.

Well, I think, I think the list you gave is, is spot on. And you know the thing that really resonated with me was and I think this isn't just about hiring consultants is about hiring a salesperson, about hiring anybody. It could be marketing is understanding the skills that they have and then understanding their EQ to understand their own skills and skill set and where they need to keep learning. Right? Like those are two different things. And I think we all often gravitate heavily on their, their experience of doing something and then we don't know how to actually ask or measure for the, you know, emotional quotient of all that stuff. So that, that I, and I think that hits. I don't care what you're hiring for. I think that matters. So.

So here's my question. How do you teach someone that say a consultant, a coach comes to you and it's even a rep, you know, it could be the same thing. How do you teach them to be self aware and self assessing? Or can you.

So if I'm honest, I, if someone is, and this is going to sound terrible, but if someone is very well tenured, I am going to struggle in all honesty to, if I'm just, as just consultants, not really reps. So if we want to talk about, then it's a little bit different. But if someone's seriously well tenured, I, it's gonna, I'm gonna struggle to teach you to care about your industry. If you don't care, if you don't care enough to keep researching close to what's happening, I'm gonna struggle. That's gonna be a battle for me to be like, but you should be looking at this research you should be looking at this data, you should be at these events, you should be assessing this. You should be following people. However, if you are a rep, that's more fun, right? You're probably a bit more malleable and you're not stuck in your ways in some sense. So my thing is always to get. Always to get reps to figure out, like, how do you make this company or this thing that you're doing right now just a vehicle to something else. Because I always say, if I gave you a million pound, are you really going to be here? And they're like, of course I am. I love this job. I'm like, I wouldn't. I'm just letting you know.

Why.

Yeah.

I'm like, let's get that off the table and know that this is a safe space to say, if we had access to a million in cash, we wouldn't be here. Okay, where would you be? And then I tried to help them connect the dots between that. And sometimes it's a challenging conversation where reps come to me after and said, I'm really sorry for kind of challenging you there. I'm like, if someone is. If someone that has done what you're trying to do is telling you some of the directions, try to listen. Don't just be like, no, I ain't doing that. So I try to help them understand, how does this become a vehicle for you? And then we say, okay, so how do I make you. Everything you're doing at work becomes something that's going to be activating life you want, right? And the things that go beyond thing. So that's what I focus on. And if I think when you're more tenured, you've got more experience, sometimes you might have made it in quotation marks. If you feel like you're like, I'm doing okay, I'm not really interested. So I'm looking for those ambitious, you know, highly tenacious individuals who are like, I'm still open to change. So I think once you're coachable to that degree and you're willing to be a bit vulnerable, then we can start to connect the dots between, okay, you need to start being a student, you need to start being more curious, you need to start elevating your game a bit more. So that's where it changes a bit.

Do you find yourself.

More ambitious and motivated now that you're doing your own thing? The same level of ambition and motivation? Less curious about that journey so far?

Yeah, so I would. I've always been ambitious. I didn't have the direction. So imagine just like this. This ball.

I would never. I would never know you wanted to be ambitious based on, you know, I.

Don'T like all this ambition. I mean, at 8 years old, I was singing Gabrielle, like, dreams do come true to try and be a singing superstar. And I was like, okay, that. I didn't get that. Let's try something else. Let's do dancing, right? So. So my. I've always been like, I want to do something, but I didn't have, like, I didn't have the thing in front of me to say, okay, that is what. That's the direction I should take. So I've always been that person, and that's why I got into sales. If I know that I need to do these eight things to be successful, I'll go do that. That's easy. You've literally given me a recipe for what I should do to be successful, and that's what attracted me to sales. And then you've got. But I didn't have. I didn't always have the recipe. So you join. You join sales, right? As. As a. You join sales as a junior rep, and they give you early, early days. You'll know there was much more structure in our careers. It was like, you will do this for one year, that for three years. You get the car, the mobile phone, and the laptop. I mean, you guys are two or three years older than me, so you might. You might not have had the laptop.

You had something electronic.

Ouch. Ouch.

I know. That was. That was a no blow.

That's all right. We deserve it. Always. You're the first person to take cheap shots at us in five seasons.

I think, look at that. This is what happens when you invite her on. But, yeah, you have all that structure. But I think I got to a point where I was like, oh, that structure's gone. I don't know. I don't really know what to do. I was just following everyone's path, but I still had that ambition with no direction. So I wouldn't say I'm more ambitious, more motivated. Yes. So what happens when you step out of a role and you do your own thing? Immediately you earn a little bit less, and then you're working more hours and you're like, oh, I don't really. Don't know if this was really what I signed up for. And then it changes, of course, but I was still motivated to do. To kind of keep grinding. So see, yeah, that's. That hasn't changed. But I think more motivation. So What.

So what made. Because my experience is different there of, like. And I fell into it. Like, it was never, you know, a strategy for me to go into consulting. So I made more money right out of the gate than I did from a real job. So if that's the concern, because I think this is the fear people have, right? Is like, oh, my God, how am I going to do it?

What made you want to do it anyway? Did you already have. Did you have a cushion? Like, I had a little bit of a cushion. So that helped, you know. But what made you take the leap?

Yeah, so I.

So I took the leap in.

So I'll tell you two things. Something happened in 28 years ago that was my first bit of consulting I did. I got a random message on LinkedIn and I'm. I was that person always on LinkedIn. I read every message and they were like, hey, we'll give you some money if you give us your bank details and give us some advice. And I was like, this sounds so dodgy. But I actually was like, sincerely, Scott Lees.

I'm like, now it's all kind of full circle. But I was like, if I just give them the bank account details that I don't really use, everyone's got that account that's kind of empty. I gave them that, and then they followed through. And then I had the call, and then I realized it was like, one of the big four. And I was like, oh, this is interesting. Why do they want to speak to me? But I was valuable, and they came back again and stuff. So I got paid and I was like, holy crap, you're going to pay me that much for that? So in my head, yeah, for an opinion, I was like, I'm going to do this. But I had this thing in my head that I'm going to wait until I'm 45. I just thought I needed gray hair to be taken seriously like that. I promise you that. I genuinely believed I needed to be a little bit older, because at the time, I was. I don't. I'm 37 now, whatever the math is on that. I was 29 or something. And I was like, I'll wait. And. But then it kept happening over and over again, and I was like, okay. And so I had a cushion that was being built up from then. So 2019, it just blew up. I wanted to go a new job at a startup. I got asked to do some more consulting, and then it went from, like, a couple of hours to the whole week, and I earned more in, like, four days than I would in a month. And I was like, well, this is goodbye. I literally sold the CEO, no offense, I'm out. And they were like, what do you mean you're out? You've just started like three weeks ago. So that was why when I took the leap, when I could see that, okay, I'm. People value my broader go to market skill sets other than just like doing player coach roles and stuff. So let me go do that. And that was it. And I wanted to work remotely. Ironically, in 2019, I was dying to work remotely because I just became a mum. And then Covid happened and I was like, perfect.

So I've got one more question around this. Yeah, I hear this a lot too, that.

I don't know if I have enough experience doing this. Like, I see a lot of people who come into the consulting world and they've got one or two years experience.

Yeah, most of them don't have enough experience.

Right.

Genuinely don't. But I am. But a lot of people who, you know, when you decide to do it or think about doing, it's a nerve wracking thing. Now that you've been through that and you know, you sort of, you know, proved your own hypothesis wrong, right. That you didn't have to wait till 45. How much experience do you think someone needs? You know, and, and I know, okay, well it depends on the industry and blah, blah. But in general, how much real world experience do you think someone needs? And Scott, I want you to answer this too. Like I think we've talked about all the time. We've never had that discussion.

Yeah, I think it's the concentration of experience that's more important rather than the amount of years. And so I tell you why I have. There are consultants who have joined companies at the right time, never experienced. Well, consultants. Well, senior revenue leaders that have joined companies at the right time, never experienced a downturn. The company's always been in growth mode, right. And then they left and they've kind of gone on to do consulting and then they go to a company that is not doing that and it's like, oh, what the hell, like they're just thrown off. So I feel like if you have a con, if you've got like about seven years, I'd say because you need to have some ups and downs, like you have to experience different environments in my opinion. Unless you're going from like, I worked at Oracle for 30 years and now I'm going to be a consultant to Oracle. Very different. Right?

Yeah. But they experienced Ups and downs in 30 years.

Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully. Right. But they. But I feel like if you have a good concentration of different experience over about seven years, then you're at a space where you're like. I've actually seen patterns in different environments with different setups that can allow me to have a more unbiased perspective. But I feel like if you've just been on either someone just all down, one company, one industry, it's hot. In my opinion, unless you're going directly into the same space, it's quite hard to come out and be really effective. And that's just. I mean, I know there's people that have been effective, but I would look at someone that's just got a few more years, because I've interviewed people from really big consulting firms where when you see the brand, you're like, I definitely want them to work for me. And, you know, they've done all the studies, they've had, gone through, like, the McKinsey way and all that stuff, and they come out and I'm like, what. What are you talking about? I don't. That's. It doesn't make any sense. You haven't done anything. So, see, yeah, it's. I don't know. It's. I think it's hard to answer the question, but I need a concentration of different things. I think that's it. That's the answer.

That's interesting, because.

Different than some people.

Think, different than how some people would describe stuff. I remember years ago in my career, I remember asking somebody more senior than me, hey, do you think I should try this and then try that and kind of round up all these different things? So somebody looked at me and said, oh, he's capable of doing everything. And the advice the person gave me was, no, you're really good at this thing. Just become like the man for that specific thing and become known for that thing. So it's this sort of debate of kind of niche down versus be able to speak broadly about a lot of different things, you know?

Yeah, I do. I do like your point that they need to have gone through.

A struggle, right? Like. Like they need to have gone through some kind of a recession. You know, the things that I always look for. One, have they ever built it from the ground up? How did they handle the ability to grow? How did they handle a downturn and bounce back those. To me, to your point, like that that brings in a certain level of skill set. And then to Scott's point, and I was probably more like the person who gave Scott, that advice, I don't know that it was me, but you know, own one thing, do it really, really, really well.

And, and I think that's actually hurt me. Like I was never, never wanted to be anyway. But I never really took accounting and I never really took some of the stuff that's, you know, I didn't like.

Yeah.

So I think it's interesting. So I, I, for me, like if I had to put a number on it, because I like numbers, I would say it's about seven years. Someone needs seven years of life experience.

In relation to going through ups and downs, going through two or three jobs, going through skill sets and figuring out what it is you like. Right.

And again, you know.

That'S about half as much time as Hannah and I both spent in the, in the mud.

Oh, it's way more than me.

Jungle.

Yeah.

Oh, dude, no, but I, I went through, I mean my first ever sales role. I, you know, I, I, I joined a team, really huge company that everyone knows and within, you know, within three months we had no sales leader because of personal reasons. So we had to manage ourselves as leaders. Know 10 junior reps out of university, no other job. That was our first real job. We managed ourselves to, you know, 105% of Target selling really crappy software on CDs that we had to integrate ourselves over a screen share on WebEx using APIs. Right. That's what we had to do.

Some muscle that built muscle.

That is, that is old school.

Okay, garden center owner, can you see your mouse? They're like, what is a mouse? I'm like, this is going to be a long afternoon. I swear. No lies told, right? So that's what we had to do. But we went from that to, you know, my first AI startup that I joined was in 2011. So I could see when I didn't know what I meant, but I joined there, they said they were going to pay me some money. I was like, sounds good. But I've seen like where it started from and what people perceive those things to be and then joined companies where I did really well very quickly, joined another big company where I realized the impact of politics and things that you can't control and how that can impact go to market strategy and teams. And I've seen teams you wiped out acquisitions, seen, you know, spit companies being spin off, divisions being spun off and new. I've seen all of it, right. So people are like, oh, I spoke to someone that you'll probably know. But they were like, how do you know so much because you haven't, haven't, like, you don't have as much experience as a lot of people. And I'm like, I've just seen so much stuff in a very short amount of time.

I think that's the, I think that's the. Yeah.

And I've experienced it and I've experienced really, really poor leadership for most of my career. So I'm like, I'm just not going to do that. And funny enough, the best consultants that I've hired or worked with are people who have less than like a year and a half of leadership because they're like, I had a crap leader too. And I'm like, yes. Like, that is the signal. You had a crap leader for a long time and you just don't do the crap stuff. So they get in, they execute really, really well. They, in customer engagements and customers continue to work. Or when you've got people that are like, everything was smooth sailing, everything was fine. It's like, guys, I'm going to need.

They need some grit. They need some grit. Scott, of all. I love what you just said to Hannah. Scott, did you have more good sales leaders or bad sales leaders in your career?

Well, to be fair, I was only an individual contributor once and it was only for about seven or eight months.

So I only had leaders above you, though you still had leaders above you.

I had no sales leaders above me other than my very first job that I was just talking about.

Ever big boss. Scott.

Yeah, I, I went from being a entry level salesperson in a full cycle sales role to being a sales manager, to being a senior sales manager, to being a director, to being a VP in under three years.

And of all those places where you still had a boss were mostly only one place, Richard.

One place I had. I had a boss.

I'm trying to get you to, I'm trying to get you to be funny, but you just don't get it. Like, I'm not down the path.

I'm not funny. Yeah. No, the, that place though, the first place, I, I would not say that I had great sales leadership. No.

Yeah, yeah. It was an interesting thought. Like, I never thought about it. Even for people who are, you know, lifelong ICs, I'd be curious to know the percentage of them that think that they've had good sales leaders.

Most people would probably self identify as not having good anything.

Yes.

Yeah.

Make their own.

We are, we are negative. Right?

That's true.

Totally agree.

But I, it's not just even the, the role that I had where I I wouldn't say I had the best sales leadership. I did learn stuff from those folks, good and bad.

Right.

And then would apply those things moving forward. But even more specifically, it was like I am never building an org and treating people like X and then trying to do, you know, kind of the opposite of that straight away and leaning really hard into that. You know, I remember this is like a stupid story, but like I had to wear a suit and tie. You know this, Richard. Like I had to wear a suit and tie every day in the office while I was making like 150 calls a day.

Yeah, it's like so the least comfortable.

Situation that you can possibly imagine. And I remember saying that I'll know I've like made it and have some level of power when I can fucking create my own dress code for me and my team and I don't ever have to wear this ever again. It's like that's when I know that I've made it, you know, and in.

Fairness, I do know the story is that, you know, it was a one to two call close. Like this was a high volume, high velocity.

This old school.

Like you're moving. Yeah. Like you're actually moving. You know, you're not sitting there, chill. You know, like you're constantly going and grinding and you're. You're working up a sweat.

Literally, you know, automating sequences.

Yeah, we didn't have that. We didn't even have that. We were the sequence. We. There was no CRM. Our CRM was a. Was a website and Hannah was working.

On AI in 2011. Meanwhile, you know, we had a phone to our ear like this and we were typing and sourcing our own leads and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah, it was. You had to win a contest to get a headphone.

I remember.

That's. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Number one salesperson gets a headset.

Right.

Yeah.

We should write that post of the worst spiffs we've ever had.

That would be. That would be good. That would be good. And I want to give you a chance to talk a little bit about the community that you've been a part of and. Or running for the last three plus years. Tell everybody a little bit about sisters and sales.

Yeah, yeah, sure. No, thank you for asking about that. So. So yeah, I, I discovered Sisters and sales on my journey to, I guess trying to. I wasn't trying to build a personal brand. I just was like to your point, Richard, like when that fear and jump, you know, being brave and trying to Test my own hypothesis. I. I started posting content, really random videos. The first few were not great, but I was like, maybe someone cares about what I have to say. And I think I got like two impressions or something. I was like, okay, we're getting there. So I started posting content and then I started, like, actively networking on LinkedIn. I didn't have any network. When I went on my own, I was very. I was very opposite to what I am now. I was very quiet, kind of heads down in a corporate space most times, until I. So I was like, oh, I don't have a network or anyone and I'm on my own. I need to go and meet people. So I saw someone post a link on LinkedIn and True Story, it said sisters in sales. And I was like, that sounds a little bit black. So I'm going to click on it. And because of the spelling, so I clicked on it and it went into a hop in. Remember those guys?

I did it right, went into a conference and I was like, what's this? And I was like, hip hop playing. I was a D, like a virtual dj, and there was just lots of women that look like me. So short, you know, to cut it short, I just found out who the CEO was. I was like, Chantelle George. And I was like, hey, this is great. Just letting you know that you're building something incredible. At the time, there might have been 4,000 members globally. And I was like, do you need help in the uk? Are you trying to go to the uk? Because we need it here. And she's like, yeah. So now, today, we're a community of 12 and a half thousand women of color, and we are really trying to create more career opportunities, networking opportunities and sisterhood for women that look like me. So I love it.

That's amazing.

You need to update the description in your LinkedIn profile, Hannah, because it still says 4,000. 12 and a half thousand.

Yeah.

12 and a half thousand is a lot more than four.

Yeah, yeah. So it's 12 and a half now. So we need to pump that. We should.

We should hire a consultant to help us figure out how to do that math.

Yeah, yeah.

Somebody, Somebody to update our LinkedIn profile. We're too busy creating content with two impressions, right?

Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Well, Hannah, Hannah, this is the part where we kind of turn it over to you. What would you like to ask us? If there's any questions you want to ask. We want to give you an opportunity.

Yeah. So I was going to say, so with the. I know that you've been doing both. Been doing consulting, and of course, got your own things going at the moment, as well as collaborating. But when it comes to working, I said, with revenue leaders, what would you say is an observation that you've made just in your experience and working revenue leaders, that.

What would you say is an observation you've made about how they interact with consultants, third parties? Because I find that it. It varies a lot from what I've seen in the last few years, but I'd love to know what your experiences have been.

Scott, you want to go first? You want me to go first?

Yeah, sure.

There are those people who feel threatened by your presence in existence, and therefore they're on the defensive all the time. There are those people who.

Don'T know how to use a resource that's available to them, and so they almost never talk to you or ask you for anything, even though you're there to help. And there are those who ping you 247 trying to figure out what socks they should put on today.

Those people are the. My favorite ones to work with because they are thirsty for knowledge and information. They want to get it right. They have no ego about anything. They're very communicative.

The ones that kind of ignore you or. Or forget you exist except for that, you know, one meeting you have on the calendar every week. Those people, to me, are. Are quite frustrating because, you know, when you're working with them directly.

You know their performance, you know they're doing good or bad or whatever, right? So you're reviewing stuff, you're like, it's not going super well. You know, maybe you should take me up on my offer to help you revise the demo, to help you with your forecast, to help you recruit or whatever the fuck we're talking about, right? And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll definitely do that. And then just don't do it. And I'm like, that bucket of people is doomed. More often, that bucket is actually doomed more than the people who res. Who resent your presence.

The people who resent your presence. Some of them, you know, it's just arrogance, and you know they're gonna fail. But a lot of the times it's people who've got a lot of confidence and maybe have done this before, and they're just like, I got this. I don't need Hannah around. I don't need Scott around, or whatever. Yeah, I might not like those people and their attitude very much, but I would bet on those people being successful more than the person who Never takes me up on the offer to help. But my favorite one is the people who messages me. 247 is constantly looking for assistance. Yeah, those are the three buckets to me, Richard.

Yeah, I think. I mean, I don't. I don't disagree with any of what you just said. I think that.

The. The challenge becomes there are some people even within, you know, those three buckets Scott has where they want to start asking for things beyond sort of what they hired you for. Scott's done a very good job of building it. Here's what it is. And you get me 24 7, you can ask me anything. Right. I have clients who want me to come in and just do the training or just do this or just do that. And that's just the business I built. And then they're like, oh, could you quickly review our email sequencing cadence? And it's like, well, wait a minute. That's, you know, that's. That's not what you're paying me for. So I'm happy to. And, and it's interesting because I try to adjust, like, I've tried to adjust my pricing to say, here's my advisory services. Here's this. Which do you want? And they all sort of gravitate to. To the one finite thing, not seeing the big picture. And so, you know, I'm not going to go push the other.

You know, if I'm going to sell them what they want to buy, I'll make them the offer and kind of go from there. So I think there are people who try to take advantage of you.

And you have to be willing to decide how much of that you're willing to do. Right. There are times if it's the right logo or the right thing or I know I need to. I'm going to get a good quote from them. So I want to do it. You know, there's value there.

I think that, you know, the biggest challenge I see are the revenue leaders who want your advice, but then they won't take it. Like, that frustrates me more than anything is like, like, thanks for that. Right. And, and, and in fairness, in some ways, they're kind of the easiest clients. Right. What's your opinion? Oh, do this, do this, do this. No, we decided not to do that. Okay. I mean, I'm getting paid regardless. Right. You know, it's kind of like, you know, if someone turns around and asks Scott to write the pitch. Well, now Scott's got to write the pitch. Right. Which isn't a problem. Like, that's what they're paying them for. But you know, that it's interesting when I see that a lot. I see that revenue leaders do not have the pull that they think they do. Right. I, I find it fascinating. And again, you know, you may work with people where they like, you could have, I could talk to a CRO and they can't spend ten grand. How can you have the word chief in front of your role and not have a budget, a line item budget that you're allowed to spend without getting additional permission. Right. Like that to me is crazy.

And even at bigger companies, like, I'm not even talking about the startups where they hire their first croft.

So I, I think that's really interesting. People have gotten so tight around the budget and they've always been a little bit that way. I also find it interesting that again, because I work with revenue leaders the most.

Yeah.

That revenue leaders always have to go back to the CRO and answer. Or the CFO and answer the ROI question. And they haven't figured out that ROI is a worthless scare tactic used to negotiate internally at the company and with what, whoever the vendor is. Right. Like, you know, it's a terrible scare tactic and I find it frustrating that people get to those VP levels and they haven't figured that out yet.

You know, and, and those pieces. So I also think is my last thing.

I see a lot of VPs and Crosby and I've always said I'm terrible at it. Who don't know how to navigate politics internally. Right. Like they don't know how to do it and I'm terrible at it. Scott knows this, but apparently if I sit down and think about it, I know what to do, but I don't execute it well myself. Which is one of the reasons I never went back to a real job. When I started this was like, I just don't play well in the sandbox with the other kids sometimes. Like, I don't have time to explain. I literally had, and there's no joke, my last real job. I had to go in with my CEO and our new COO and pitch. We were going to use HubSpot.

And the little thing where it would, like, tell you when someone opened their email, like, this is 10 years ago, before all the, you know, when that was really hip and it was going to cost 10 users a month, it was going to cost us 50 bucks a month. I had to go spend 45 minutes, explain to them why that was valuable. Right. And I was considered a VP of sales. And I had interviewed, I said Do I have a budget? What is my budget that I don't need to check with you on? They're like, don't worry about it, you'll be fine. So that's the stuff that irritates me. So I don't know. Do you. What do you see?

So I see it so very similar to how Scott broke it down actually. But I like the ones who are, who say I, they, they're a revenue leader. They go in and they're like, well my job is to deliver an outcome which is revenue. That's it. Which means I can do that however I want. Of course, in, inside the guardrails of our, our go to market. So they're like, that may mean I bring in a consultant, that may mean I bring in some tech, I bring in some talent. But that's my recipe for success. And I'm going to go do that. And if you're not, if you're going to hire me and not allow me to be free to do that, then what's the point in me being here? So I love, if I think about over the last year I probably worked in 38 go to market teams. The biggest concentration when I was at Scaled and, and you can see the, the, the, the senior leaders who are like, oh yeah, I, this is great. I'm so happy that my company have invested in you. If they joined at the same time or the ones who are like I'm here now, like what can, what should we do? Let me, I'm. I will give you everything you need to help us be successful. So, so I love seeing that. But it shouldn't be a case where like yeah, going in and saying hey, we need an extra $500 to do. It's like, come on man, stuff like that.

Yeah.

I put on my credit card, I'll expense it. When you see the result, I'm just gonna buy it myself and then I'll expense. That's why I can't wait around for the decision making. I'm just, I did it. I'm sorry.

That's how Richard spends our surfing sales money.

That's not true. I don't spend any. Never gotten an expense.

He knows if he asked me, hey, can I, can we spend money on this thing? He knows the answer is going to be no.

Although you've slowly opened the, the wallet this year.

I know I'm starting to spend more money. I don't, I don't. It makes me very uncomfortable. I'm not gonna lie.

We should talk about that.

Yeah, we should. Break that down on our. On the next episode of Surf and we'll talk about why Scott is such a cheapskate.

Yes.

Hannah, this has been awesome. Thank you so much. We're, we're, you know, LinkedIn, obviously. Where else can people get a hold of you? What's the, is it sistersandsales.com like where, where do people go for that as well?

Yeah. So if you want to contact us about partnerships with system sales, we have our big summit coming up in September as we do every year in various different ways that we partner. It's Hannah@SistersInSales.com if you're thinking about go to Market Consulting and you're like, Scott and Richard don't know what they're doing, but Hannah does. Then.

Wow.

Two, two.

Oh my God.

Currently Hannah two, Scott and Richard zero.

Right.

But it's, it's Hannah@revenuefinal.co.uk but on my, on my LinkedIn profile, I've just got like an eight minute, like deep dive. Like that's what we do. If that isn't what you're trying to get your company aligned to the buyer, there's definitely definite different alternatives. So that's my focus.

Great.

Thanks so much for joining us, Hannah.

Thank you so much, Hannah. It's been fun. Mostly.

I see everybody next time on the Surf and Sales podcast.