HOW TO SELL CHANGE INTO THE ENTERPRISE - TAYLOR WILDING, XACTLY - VP OF SALES

What if you're selling something that affects multiple departments— finance, HR, sales, sales revenue— and it's a huge expense for the company? Imagine trying to herd all those cats, trying to get them all aligned that changing the way they're doing things now is better. That's what we're going to be talking about today. This This interview and this use case is pretty common today because, you know, everybody wants to do what? Digital transformation. A lot of us are selling digital transformation. People are moving from Excel or some homegrown application to SaaS, software as a service, enterprise software as a service, a way of— Condensing all of this stuff and automating it. But the problem is it's change. We're selling change and people get used to doing things their way. And I've got a lot of people in the course, Closing the Complex Sale, who are facing this. And the old approach of sticking with one champion and talking about how the product works and what you get from it. It's part of it, but it's not enough. It's— and the default ends up being no decision, which means no deal, or no deal for the foreseeable future. Now, what's a sales rep's favorite topic? Uh, commissions? Well, yeah, but next to commissions, it's comp plans. So today's guest is from Xactly. They sell a bunch of sales intelligence applications, but the key one and what they started with was being able to take these complex comp plans, because they've gotten pretty, pretty complex, and to be able to automate that, to be able to model it, to be able to give the reps the understanding of how they get paid. Wouldn't that be nice?

No.

At most companies, I always knew how I got paid. It was complex, but, you know, I'm a pretty smart guy. But then my startup got bought by this huge company, and I had no idea how I got paid. I knew what my base was. I knew what my target income was. I knew what my quota was. But when I got a deal, there was all these ingredients in the deal, services, hardware, software, maintenance, all this stuff was in it and I got paid differently on every single element. And they would have spiffs and other contests, which made it so confusing. And it was one of the times I got promoted to be a manager. Imagine that. I had the challenge of my reps asking me, and I'm like, oh guys, you got to figure it out on your own. I'm still figuring it out. And it was this antiquated system, and it's demotivating because you close a big deal, you get your check, and you have no idea if it's right or not. You just assume it's right. Hard to reconcile because they're talking in a different language. So imagine trying to solve this problem for your clients where there's a need, a high need. Is it recognized yet?

Hmm.

Now think of you get one person really excited about it, but then you got to get these other people. Because the people who get excited about it May not be the users of it, or they may be the end users of it, but not the payroll people who actually have to use it from a data entry standpoint. I see this. This is a very common case today, and it's a major reason why deals slow down or stall. It's not that they don't want the product. It's that somebody somewhere is saying, I don't want to do that. Ah, it's okay. We can live without it. It's a real obstacle. How do you get around that? How do you sell change? That's the topic for today. I think you're really going to enjoy this. I'll sum it up at the end and I'll give you some coaching of how to get around it. But let's get into the interview. Uh, before we do, have you checked out brevitypitch.com? Man, how do you get better at anything? You do it, repetitions, feedback, integrate the feedback, do it again. And when you have important calls, believe me, you should warm up. You should plan the call, prepare for the call, practice the call, or you could wing it. But we know how wing it works. Wing it, we just go with our intuition. But then you learned on the podcast that sales is counterintuitive. Your intuition plays against you. So, you better practice with brevitypitch.com.

Here we go. Hey, Taylor, thanks for joining us today.

As a way of getting started, give us a little background on yourself.

Yeah, Brian. So, Taylor Wilding. I am the VP of Sales here in North America for Xactly. I've been here for about 5 years and took a pretty interesting route to get to the role that I'm in today and in general in sales. Started my, my career a little bit late, if you will, professional careers. I started playing professional baseball and played up until I was about 27 years old and then got started into this business career of mine and, you know, had a couple of really good experiences before I got to Xactly and had the opportunity to do both sales and operations, managing some P&Ls and such. So that diverse background allowed for me to hit the ground running here at Xactly.

And why, why the switch? Yankees didn't pick you up?

I was in the Giants and the Angels organizations and I call it a diminishing skill set, right? When I was supposed to be hitting my stride and getting that quote unquote man strength or dad strength, I was getting worse and I just saw the writing on the walls and figured it was time to go find myself a long-lasting career. So here I am.

And how'd you adjust to sales? Was it a nice easy transition or?

Oh, of course. Everything. Yeah. So, oh yeah. So easy, you know, no hiccups whatsoever. No, I think, you know, I was very fortunate in the sense that I wasn't always, uh, like baseball was what I did. It wasn't who I was, uh, even though of course people associated me with directly with baseball, but, uh, it still was really hard to go find what that, that thing, that next thing was after baseball. Um, and so I was fortunate enough to start with, you know, State Farm and, and start selling with them with a buddy of mine that I played college baseball with, opened up an office here in the Silicon Valley and So that was a good kind of kicking off point, but I realized real quickly people don't like to buy things they can't hold onto, right? They want tangible, something that's gonna help them in the near term and hopefully no one has to use insurance. So that was a tough one. Went off and sold promotions and sponsorships with the Giants again, actually. So moved to the front office, if you will. And I learned a really critical story there in sales, and that's to tell stories. And with my baseball career that I had playing, I saw a lot of different things out there that worked and didn't work. So being able to go into small and large businesses and tell a story about what I've seen and why it worked and why it didn't work, it was like shooting fish in a barrel. And so that storytelling has carried through with me for the rest of my sales career for sure.

Cool. And you're selling something that's pretty complex, or I guess it's complex because there's so many stakeholders.

Yeah, a lot of different stakeholders. And of course, you know, we have a platform at Xactly, so we're best known, you know, probably to most people for our commission software, but it spans much further than that, you know, working on territory quota management planning, um, as well as sales forecasting, revenue forecasting, um, and then of course, you know, the sales commissions piece. But yeah, it's complex. There's a lot of different stakeholders, uh, but at the end of the day, it's about finding, you know, the pain that the customer has and, and And really laddering to that.

Yeah. And who's the person that typically cares the most about this? Is it everybody?

That's an interesting question, actually. So like, it really spans the entire organization and throughout the entire hierarchy because salespeople, I mean, heck, we're at the beginning of the year right now, right? Our fiscal starts in February, some start in January, some are offset. But that comp plan season comes around and people are always wondering what's changing. Quotas never hardly go down. So they're always anticipating that territories sometimes shrink and quota goes up and it just, that feeling of angst or anxiety for sellers. So helping provide that clarity and understanding as to how they can go achieve their numbers is a part of that. So of course the sellers care, that's the behavior driver, that carrot that's dangling out there for them to go get. But then of course up to the finance and CFO is understanding, you know, what is the impact to our financials? You know, typically commissions is one of the top 3 things in the P&L. And so understanding what that cost is going to be is critical. So everybody within the organization somehow cares about, about commissions or bonuses of some, of some nature.

So if you're prospecting, who do you start with? Does it matter?

It matters because we have a platform. And so it depends on also what solution is that you're, you know, going after and which persona that you're looking to talk to. So anywhere from RevOps, when you're in sales leadership, when you're talking about our pipeline management and forecasting solution, you you know, territory quota management, you're looking at FP&A and the finance, you know, department, essentially office of the CFO. And then on the commission side, I think that's an interesting one because we see it go into so many different organizations. There's some that, you know, it lives in HR, some lives in finance, some lives in RevOps. And so, you know, that's kind of the art of it is figuring that out within organizations. And of course, you know, using the tools at hand are Are the only way to figure that out. You know, the Sales Navigators, ZoomInfos of the world, you know, going to figure out where people live within their own organization. Yeah.

And is the commission thing kind of the Trojan horse where you get in and then you expand, or?

Yeah, it's the flagship for sure. I mean, it's, it's, it's something that we've had and we've been a leader in the space for a long time. So it's definitely that beachhead or Trojan horse, as you called it, to expand. But there's also, We think about it as different on-ramps to get onto the platform and, and so meet, meet our customers where they are is really the philosophy.

Yeah. And what are they using before they look at Xactly?

Yeah, I mean, there's other solutions out there, of course, right? But at the same time, the inevitable spreadsheets are still living and breathing out there for folks. And so some people and companies are, are still leveraging spreadsheets. And I'm not just talking about the commissions, I'm talking about you know, forecasting, I'm talking about territory and quota management. Like, there's some large publicly traded organizations out there that are still leveraging spreadsheets and, and lack the audit trails that go along with having a solution like Xactly. And so it really, the, you know, the gamut, it's all over the place.

And does a company have to kind of hit a certain size before the pain becomes obvious that a spreadsheet isn't going to cut it?

I think, yeah, it's funny. I think really, you know, 50 to 100 plan participants from a commissions perspective is where that kind of starts. You know, interesting thing about how I made it to exactly is I was actually running go-to-market for a startup and I wanted to, you know, spin up a commissions program instead of bonuses. And it was a Dutch-founded company. And so the Dutch, you know, have a different way of thinking when it comes to dollars and cents for sure. And so when I presented it, I stumbled upon a legacy product that we no longer sell here at Xactly, but as an option to manage the commissions. And he told me no. But at the same time, I of course found that, you know, there was a job opportunity with Xactly. So I saw the problem and I saw the ability to go tell a story there as well. And here we are. But yeah, it's It's about 50 to 100 people, I think, is where that pain is just excruciating. And it also depends on the journey of a company, right? Like you've got those companies that are end of cash that are thinking about where's the next, you know, we're 16, 12 to 18 months away from not knowing where we're gonna have enough money to operate. And you've got those companies that are, that are, you know, healthy and backed to the degree where they're thinking 3, 5-year strategy. And so it really depends on where they're at as an organization as well. Yeah.

And who, who are you most comfortable talking to? Is it another sales leader, I would assume, or?

I, you know, I think now I'm, I'm, I'm 5 years into this journey at Xactly. So me personally, I feel like I can understand and empathize with everybody that has this pain, right? And if it's anywhere from, you know, like I said, the forecasting side of things and pipeline management and risk mitigation, You know, that impacts, while it might be the sales, sales leaders that are hands on keyboard and trying to motivate their sellers and, you know, look around corners and such, the finance team as well, especially in these dynamic times, is trying to make that next fiscal year plan or what have you. And so understanding what the chances of hitting the numbers and then what are the commissions impacts and all that kind of stuff. So it's easy to talk to multiple stakeholders because everything that we do pretty much impacts cross-departmentally. Yeah.

And I got to believe it's the type of thing that, you know, RevOps would be interested in finance depending on how much they love Excel, I guess.

Yeah, true. Yeah, you're spot on there that Excel is, you know, finance, they're wizards. I mean, they're— I know our finance team still uses— they still use Excel for, you know, many things. And it's fantastic to see them and they're wizards in it. So I could see where that level of comfort is. At the same time, that freedom and flexibility could get dangerous when you're talking about commissions. And if you, you know, fat finger one number, you could be overpaying the entire organization. And then that, of course, is going to have a huge impact on you. So having those intentional guardrails, but at the same time, we know that only about 80% of what people are doing, you know, is purpose-built. And so how do you then match that other 20%? And, you know, the ability to have extensions off of that core is critical in order to meet the customers where they are and make sure that everything is solved for under that umbrella.

And when you were working your way up, what kind of differentiated you? Because you had a pretty rapid ascent.

Yeah, it's funny because I came to Xactly intentionally to become an individual contributor again, you know, at that startup, had a hard time getting that infrastructure in place. Like I said, I couldn't even get a commission. I couldn't sell internally, you know, to get Xactly in there, let alone, you know, I came to Xactly and then sold it externally, oddly enough. But I knew a little bit more about the solution then. Yeah, I had, you know, I've had an opportunity coming back to be an IC. And then the opportunities have been great because I think sales leadership, you don't find sales leadership, sales leadership finds you in a way. I think that Not that we're born to do it, but there's certain makeups of individuals. And I think my sports background, you know, plays a good part in that, that I'm— it's a group of individuals that are coming together as a team, just like sales is. And so I've never been a part of a deal where we don't have cross-departmental collaboration, executive sponsors, SCs, you name it, involved in the transaction, in the cycle. And so to me, it's You know, the climb here at Xactly has been, while it seems like it might be fast on paper, it seems like it's been a natural progression as far as I see it.

Yeah. Yep. And what skills kind of got you to stand out?

That's a great question. I think that team aspect, right? I was always leaning into certain things and trying to help my teammates. You know, and understanding the process. I think when I go back to, I mentioned managing a P&L, that was at my times when I was managing business centers for Regus, you know, flexible office spaces. And in that role, you know, not just selling and filling the center with small businesses, but that also helped me because I was talking to different kinds of businesses at different stages of their journey. And, but managing that P&L, having that that skill set, then when you become an individual contributor and you're growing within an organization and, you know, CPQ, for example, not a lot of reps lean into it and actually understand, you know, exactly what's going on within CPQ or things. And I always have taken the approach of like, I want to be the master of that thing. And then people come to you and naturally, you know, you become a leader by doing. My dad always used to My dad was a real quiet leader, kind of showing the way and not telling the way. And so I think that was just something that I've, you know, just organically taken on as well.

Yeah. And does, do a lot of the baseball lessons translate to sales?

You know, it's, if you, if you go 3 for 10, I was a pitcher, but if you go 3 for 10, you're, you're pretty much in the Hall of Fame. And so you're failing way more than you're succeeding. You know, in sales, I think that's no different, right? Regardless of how good of a seller you are, you know, 33% of the deals you're going to win no matter what, 33% you're going to lose no matter what, and 33% of them you're going to have to sell your pants off. And so I think that it's really important to go in with that mentality. And I think that I've always thought as a pitcher, I'm not competing against the whole team at once. I'm competing against the guy that's in that box standing next to that 17-inch wide plate, that, that's who I'm competing against. And so in sales, I've always thought that I'm competing against not the other vendors in the space, I'm competing against the other seller that's, that's representing that vendor. And so how do I go give the very best experience to my future customer as possible so that they're, when they associate ease of use and, and how good things are going to be, they associate it with their experience that they've had with me and now with my sellers.

Sorry, I sensed a little competitive nature there.

Yeah, none, none at all. Yeah. No, I mean, yeah, I, I've got an older brother and a younger sister, all of which are, are athletes. So it, it came from a young age. Yeah. Competitive nature is, is, is in my blood. I can't get it out.

Yeah. Because you've got internal competitors, XL.

Yeah.

And then you've got, you know, probably handful of others that can do something like it, but not it, right? How do you differentiate?

Well, first off, it's, it's just what I just said, right, is, is being a person. People still buy from people regardless of what, you know, some might, some might say or think. It's interesting, of course, a lot of people do so much of their research ahead of time. And so by the time they get to you, they've already got some preconceived notion. We've also been in the space for Longer than, than, than pretty much everybody else. And so people have used us in different places. You know, some have had really great experiences. And then of course, some have had, you know, mediocre experiences, some have poor experiences. And, you know, with software, just like anything else, no software is perfect, A, and understanding that. And then B is that implementations and the way people manage it throughout the course of time also, you know, dictates how, how well the software is going to work for them. And so Just understanding where people are at. And so how do you differentiate is the question. And it really comes down to the people first and foremost. And then second of all is meeting the customers where they are. Like I talked about, if we're as a more enterprise solution going and talking to someone that's got, you know, the 50, 25, you know, plan participants, you know, they're probably, you know, they could use our solution and they do use our solution, but Whether or not it's the perfect fit is really up to them and, and what their plans are within the solution for, for the rest of their time. So I think that we, we compete really well across the board, anywhere from the bottom end of the market to the top end of the market. And it starts with our people.

And where do you get either the naysayers or pushback where people are kind of emotionally attached to Excel? It's their job, it's their wheelhouse. And, you know, something new is, you have to learn it, right?

Yeah.

It's kind of a sense of job security for them, right? And they, they know it, um, and they know it well. And then, you know, the interesting part too is very rarely when people send over their spreadsheets that they're using today, if that's what they're using, that we don't find an error in there, right? When we're recreating or we're putting together a demo to give them a like experience or match their comp plans within the demo experience that, that we don't find in Air. And so that's the hard part right there, Brian, is like going back and saying, hey, you want to go sell with value and say, you know, the return on investment is going to be XYZ because you're overpaying by, by so much. But at the same time, you're going and you're calling their baby ugly, right? And so you've got to be very careful as to how you navigate those waters and who you go to first to tell them, you know, the person who's got hands on keyboard. So yeah, they have a relationship with Excel, if you will, and some love it, some hate it, and some want to find ways, ways around it. But ultimately it comes to, you know, the economic buyer and the overall company objectives. You know, what are they looking to accomplish in the next 6 to 12 months despite any solution that we might or any other competitor might be able to provide them? If we can understand that, then everything else is going to align and we'll be able to deliver some value to that organization.

And how do you ferret out who is the economic buyer? Because you've got RevOps, you've got sales, you've got finance, maybe HR.

Yeah, we got a nice dartboard in the office. So we just, you know, toss a dart and figure out which one we're gonna align to. No, you've got to ask questions, right? I mean, it's pretty natural when you're talking to someone to figure out what that reporting structure looks like. Then once you get in a room, of course, use things like discussion mapping and figure out where the power lives and things of that nature. So I think there's a lot of different tactics, but you're right. You know, we've got the office of the CHRO might be the decision maker and economic buyer in one place, you know, VP of finance and CFO office, the CFO another place, and then, you know, in RevOps or even some places have, you know, full-on commissions operations that typically live in finance when it's that case. But So yeah, it's, it's a, it's an art and a science that come together and figuring that out for sure.

Because it's the number one question I get from sales leaders is, yeah, Brian, tell me the ideal comp plan. And I'm like, that's not an email.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot of people that make a lot of money to design comp plans, both, you know, in-house and then also externally. We're lucky enough to have a consultants in-house that helps our customers to design those plans. And excuse me, wouldn't it also be great if there was a software that provided you the ability to design those comp plans? So maybe there's something in the future there. I don't know. But I think that there's, you know, modeling it, understanding what behaviors you're looking to drive. And, and of course, what is that impact to the overall financial health of an organization is key. So yeah, it's not an email by any means. There's, there's definitely modeling and And a deep understanding of what the, how that ladders up to the overall company objectives. Because the last thing you want to do is design a plan that's not going to help the organization to meet their objectives. Our founder and former CEO wrote a book called Game the Plan a few years back. And he talks about, Chris Cabrera, he talks about, you know, gaming the plan is actually not a bad thing if the comp plans are designed properly, because even if a rep games the plan and figures out those loopholes, it's going to benefit their pockets individually, but it's also going to benefit the organization. And so if you can design a plan that does just that, then you're on the right path.

I bet you've seen some pretty hairy ones. Is that true?

I have. Yeah. I've seen some that I know for a fact I wouldn't go unnecessarily go knocking on that door if I was in the job market. You know, there's some definitely interesting things and there's reasons for it, I'm sure. Right. And how they got there. I think the interesting part is that people are apprehensive to change. Just in general, it's human nature, of course. But so sometimes, are they inherited? Does the business change? There's a lot of different reasons for it. But yeah, there's some interesting comp plans out there for sure.

And what would you say is your most dominant or most powerful sales skill?

That's a great question. I would say, hopefully it comes across in this conversation as well, is passion.

Yeah.

I think that I'm passionate, but at the same time, hopefully neutral enough to not, you know, I think about it as being on a roller or as a, as being on a carousel and not on a roller coaster. I talk to the sellers about that. You can get very emotional within these sales cycles and engagements with customers and how do you just maintain that consistency so that they can't tell if you're, you know, over here on this side you know, panicking or if you're over here and you're euphoric about what's going on. And so I think passion and just level, level-headed is how I hope that comes off. And I think the passion is real easy with what it is that we offer because I'm not selling something that I don't use, right? I talked about insurance at the top of the call.

Yeah.

You know, the forecasting piece, I'm in there every day and at the same time I get to sell this stuff is great. So I have a story to tell. organically there. And then of course, I love getting paid commissions and I love my team to get paid commissions and have the visibility and understanding of what they're getting paid and why they're getting paid to go drive that behavior. It's really easy to get passionate about that stuff and go sell what it is we use ourselves.

And I bet pitching kind of helped you get that emotional regularity.

Yeah, because I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you right now, Brian, if I was, if I was just you know, killing it out there. I still have most of my friends at this point that I played with are coaching or probably going to be on the, you know, Hall of Fame ballot here in a year or two as opposed to, you know, still out there. So, you know, that those, those times and the failures that I had out there definitely have helped me and the success, right? That feeling of, of, you know, having bases loaded and striking a guy out in a tough spot. And inheriting runners, I think too, right? You get some, some guy on second base with 2 outs and it's not your run. You could very easily say, ah, who cares about it? But at the end of the day, you've got to come in and do the job as a, as a teammate. And that's a great feeling. So those, those types of things definitely translate into what I've got going on today.

And now as a VP, you're the center, you're on the mound again every quarter, right? Yeah.

On the mound. Yep. The, the mound seems to get a little bit higher and there seems to be more fans in the stadium. You know, the higher up, up you go, there's a little bit more pressure on you. But that's, I think, the fun part, right? Like when you're in a, in a position where you've gotta go get creative and you've gotta go figure something out and come up with a strategy, knowing and, and being confident that that's gonna work is the start. And then of course seeing it through. And when it does work, then it's, it's really gratifying. And so that's, you know, I think there's a saying that, that's, you know, no pressure, no diamonds. And to me, that's, that's kind of how I think about it.

And it must be hard to find reps that can be successful in this space because you get multiple personas you got to talk to. Most of them aren't viewing it as a must-have until they see what they can do with it.

Yeah.

Once again, I go back to the journey of an organization. Where are they at and what matters? But when it comes to the reps and it comes to the people, that is, like I said before, that's the cornerstone of our organization. And you've got to find ways to invest in those people and get them to the point where they're comfortable, you know, having these conversations. And we talk a lot about the Xactly Village You're not going at it alone. And so, you know, the way that I learned the talk track is, you know, listening to other people. And so, you know, return to office and you can't get— yeah, you can go listen to course calls or Gong calls or whatever it may be, but like being in office, swiveling the chair around and saying, hey, why'd you ask that right there? Like, and, and then what were you trying to accomplish in asking that question? And then did you have a plan to go to that next question after that? That's That's what I think is, is how we grow and foster that culture of sharing and understanding, you know, how to navigate those objections and just talk tracks in general.

And how do you keep the momentum going? Because it's also probably a time-based sale, meaning that you have to get them at the right time in their cycle.

You know, yeah, yeah, I, you know, everyone's got a calendar that they're working off of, right? Be it calendar or fiscal calendar that's offset. And that's definitely a thing that we organically tie to because most of the time people want to launch a new, you know, their new commission plans and the software to go along with it at a certain time. But then we've got the other products, the other solutions that we have that, that don't necessarily have the quite as much seasonality, if you will.

Exactly.

I think everybody needs to understand the risk within their pipeline at any given time. And so we have those different on-ramps to, of course, have our customers join us. But, you know, the seasonality of the commissions, I think at the same time, if there's a pain and they need to fix something and they need to accomplish something as an overall corporate objective, Then the timing doesn't matter as much.

And how do you compete against, you know, Excel? It's free. And, you know, somebody, your champion, goes to the economic buyer, whoever that is, and they say, well, not now, next quarter. They don't argue with the quality of the product or the capabilities. It's just, right, we're okay now.

Well, I go back to selling with value. You know, you've got to really demonstrate what it is that we provide outside of just the fact that the calculations are working. It's a behavior-driving software that enables your sellers to understand what they're getting paid, why they're getting paid, and how they're getting paid on the commission side. And so I don't think Excel can provide that. I know Excel can't provide that. And so yeah, that's, that's the calculation. But at the same time, You know, some of these companies are, have millions and billions of line items of transactions that they're, they're running. And so at a certain point too, you're going to break the spreadsheet. And, and managing that and auditing that and everything that goes along with it is, is, is just not feasible. So while spreadsheets are amazing and amazing that we're still using them in today's world, there's, there's a lot better mousetraps, if you will. And We just happen to have one.

And does ROI work or is it kind of—

It does, but yeah, it needs to be their numbers though, right? And, and so getting those numbers and, and quantifying what it is that, you know, overpayments might look like and what their total, uh, expenditure looks like on commissions in order to help quantify that ROI is something that once again, nothing against our, our comp admins and things, things of that nature, uh, people of that nature, they're, they're amazing and And truthfully, the strongest asset that we have out there in the marketplace, but they don't necessarily have line of sight into, into that all the time, maybe, right? And so, or the priority to it. And so it's really about, you know, making way to the higher within the organization and doing it naturally and not going around people, of course, as a, as that never goes well. So how do you, how do you elevate within an organization, it's, it's by selling with value and asking really good questions that are thought-provoking to, to the people that are hands-on keyboard or that you're engaged with to be like, man, I need to go talk to so-and-so or so-and-so or, or whomever it may be to get those answers to help. And once we get to that, then, then we generally have really good ROI conversations. But they need to be their numbers in order for them to believe it.

Yeah. And what makes a great rep in this space? I'm sure you've seen a lot.

Yeah, I go back to storytelling. You know, the people that really are successful in this space in general are people that have a story to tell. And I've seen, you know, particular reps when they're in there and they're telling a story about how they've been impacted or what they've seen within their customers. Those are the ones that really resonate with with the, with our future customers. And so the, the people that really succeed are, of course, the one thing that you can never teach is hard work.

Yeah.

Hard work is just something that you're not gonna, you're not gonna succeed in, in this space if you're not working hard, because there's other folks out there, like I said, competing against not the other vendors, but the other sellers at those vendors. Is, is what it comes down to. And so how do you outwork them? How do you out, you know, give a better experience than them? And those are the people that really succeed.

I gotta believe it takes a lot of preparation because you're talking to finance, ops, sales.

Yeah.

A lot of different fields.

Listen, if you go in and you're talking speeds and feeds, it's not gonna be a very good, good, good, good conversation. So yeah, you've gotta do a level of preparation. You know, it's, I'll take it back to baseball. If you're going out there and you expect to just go, you know, treat every hitter the very same and throw the same combination of pitches in the same counts, it's not gonna go well. There's— the people have holes in their swings, as they say, right? And so if you know where to throw the ball based on someone's weaknesses, then you're gonna have a better chance of getting that hitter out. And so the same goes in sales. You've gotta go out there, you've gotta prepare, you've gotta understand it's not necessarily holes in a swing, but it's understanding where the the holes are in the business, what they're— what that pain point is, and how you're going to go be the plug for that hole and figure out a way to, to, to be of service for them and drive value for their organization. And that's, to me, where, where we start seeing that.

And when you're looking for a rep or you're interviewing them, yeah, what are some of your key questions to ferret out if they're going to fit?

Yeah, that's, that's something that we're You know, in the midst of at the moment, as a matter of fact. And, and the key questions there, we always like to know, like, when things are going really well, how, how are, what's your, you know, what are your behavioral attributes? What is it that, that you're, that you're doing? And then at the same time, when things aren't going well for you, like, how are you, how are you reacting there as well? And it's very interesting, especially even in an interview setting, you know, how How it varies. And so, you know, people that are able to take some lumps, you're going to have some of those days, right? There's going to be days where you wake up and you don't feel good. You're going to wake up some days where, you know, the market's down and people are not in the mood to spend any money. And Lord knows we've seen that a little bit in the last few years.

A little.

And so, you know, you got to go out and you've got to, you know, be positive and find a way to have that passion regardless of what's going on in your personal life or the business world. And And market in general. So those people that are more consistent, I talked about that carousel. You know, the roller coaster doesn't work. It just doesn't. So how do you stay on that carousel? What are you doing outside of work to stay on that carousel? Are you working out? Are you walking? Are you getting that vitamin D? Whatever you need to do. Are you spending time with your family? Snowboarding? Whatever it is that makes your heart go. Painting? Whatever it is, you've got to figure out a way to stay centered and be able to, you know, deliver On a daily basis.

Because I got to believe with this type of sale, the trap for the rep would be getting happy ears. They hear somebody say, this is amazing, we love it. I think we're going to go ahead, give me a call in a week, and then they ghost you because they get resistance.

Yeah, we don't get that, Brian. That doesn't happen. We don't, we don't have any. Nobody ever has had happy ears in this building. Yeah, it's tough, right? You hear people and I think it goes back to once again how high you are in the organization because you're solving a problem For an individual, right? That person or those people that are working on commissions on a daily basis or that are, you know, calling their number and you're talking maybe to a sales director or even a VP of sales that has these challenges in triangulating their call, top-down, bottoms-up, leveraging AI, all those things. They might feel that pain, but then the budget and other things that are happening within the organization take priority. And so it's very easy as a seller to, you know, have that relationship with your catalyst, if you will, but then the economic buyer sees it differently or is not prioritizing it, or maybe doesn't even know that this evaluation's happening. And so it's very easy to have those happy years. And I think that, you know, you gotta be like I talked, kind of talked about that scale of euphoria, if you will, that you're over here on panic or you're over here at euphoria. How do you kind of remain centered until you have the right to be over on Euphoria.

Hey, really appreciate your time today. Where can people go to connect and follow you?

Yeah, so on LinkedIn, of course, for me personally. And then of course, we got exactlycorp.com is a great place to check some things out there, some best practices and the like. But yeah, LinkedIn's a great place.

I highly recommend you go to Tyler's LinkedIn Check out his profile. He's skyrocketed at Exactly. He's been there, it looks like 5 years, and he's already made it vice president from a rep. It's pretty amazing. He's got to be doing something right. So give him a connection request at Tyler Wilding at Exactly.

X-A-C-T-L-E-L-Y.

Great guy. I really enjoyed the talk. Now let me give you some coaching on how do you handle this. Well, first, how do you not handle it? Don't do the old-fashioned single-threaded, I'm talking to one champion and just supporting them and hoping that they can get it through. That's the death knell here because they're going to tell you what you want to hear, not the truth. And they're trying to get it done, but There's always gonna be resistance. People hate to change, especially when people have built that spreadsheet themselves. They get emotionally attached to it. And, you know, I've had people in the course that still just use paper. People get used to just writing on paper. And the problem with all of that stuff, you lose paper, paper gets wet, can't read it. That might be an issue. And with spreadsheets, have you ever tried to use a spreadsheet for something? I mean, I used to use it for my pipeline, and guess what happened all the time? You'd fat finger some cell and you lose the phone number or the email. So you end up having version control issues if you want to save it. So I used to save it once a week or once every other day and hope I know where I saved it to. It's very error-prone. And then I moved to a very simple CRM. Nothing complicated. So when you're selling change within a company, you got to understand that the stall is the default. No decision is, in most cases, about 80%. In this type of case, it's probably 90%, 95% if you're not talking to each of those departments. Now, how do you do that? I can teach you.

It's hard.

Well, not as long as you plan. The problem is people won't talk to the other departments until they need to. That's the last time, or the worst time, you want to talk to them because they know you need them and they don't want to talk to you. Their mind's made up. We're okay the way we are.

Oh boy.

So These type of sales look easy because your product is 100,000 times better than the current solution. So it's obvious, right?

Wrong.

Selling with logic is part of it. The other part is understanding people because companies are full of them. They all have their own agenda and they all have their own quirks. And they all have their own status and power. And you can kind of think you can railroad them, or the champion can railroad them. Even if you sell top-down, CEO wants to do it. Okay. I've seen that get stalled too. This is the part of the complex sale that a lot of people don't understand. People think it's If you get that one person, even the CEO, who really wants it, committed to doing it, says they're going to do it, and then won't call you back. That's the default. So in the complex sale, you can understand you're selling to a thread of the company all the way through. Not everyone, but the key people, the people who can stop your deal As well as the people that can help your deal. And you got to assume it's going to stall. So you have to build that into your strategy, not react to it once it does stall. What do I keep saying? Sales is a prevention profession. Once something goes wrong in the complex sale, they've kind of made their mind up for not now. And that's a key ingredient now. A year from now, who will have the account? Maybe not you. You're putting all this work into it. You have to understand how companies buy, how to keep that momentum going, how to build up consensus— divide and concur, not divide and conquer— to keep the deal moving. And if you don't do this, what you're going to end up with is a big pipeline of deals that are highly qualified but don't close. And I put a post out this week about, uh, the idiot effect. And we talked about this on a previous episode because when we talk about problems and gaps or Past state, future state, those are all logical things. But think of all the things that you don't buy just because you're not ready, you got other things that are more important, you're overwhelmed. I've got a ton of them. I've got a whole list. Is it because I don't— I'm not in pain? Oh boy, I'm in pain. Not critical pain. I've lived without it up till now. So clearly the pain hasn't been enough. So too many people, and certainly sales trainers, think it's all about the conversation. And the conversation is a big part, but the process and the strategy and being able to herd those cats, get them aligned and on your side. We think it's a buying committee where we're going to have a committee meeting, Thursday at 4 to talk about this stuff. That doesn't exist. It's an informal committee, meaning that there's no structure to it. There's no leader. There's no real signal of membership. It's informal, like loosely coupled. It's like your workers. Think about your company. Imagine trying to do this at your company. You know there's going to be people who would love it, and some people just don't want to change. They know it's better. They know it's the right thing. They know it has a great ROI. But, oh, I gotta learn something new. And that's a big obstacle sometimes because most of us are learning something new all the time. We get a new app, someone sends us a link. Okay, here's how you do it. You got to fill it out, all 75 cells. Oh, but once you get used to it, it's fine. But that learning curve, the squeeze isn't worth the juice in your mind. But you got to think of the whole team, not just yourself sometimes. But you get where I'm going with this. If you don't embrace this and acknowledge it, Or prepare to prevent it. You're going to be in the course and go, what happens at the very last minute when somebody raises their hand and says, ah, this isn't going to work for me? That happens all the time. No matter how well your strategy is, that's going to happen. Anticipate it. Learn how to prevent it. If you don't, what you'll find is at the end of the quarter when you think the deal's coming through, it doesn't. That's the real pain. You need to face that early in the process and work around it. If it's something you're facing and you want to win more deals, go to b2brevenue.com. Check out Closing the Complex Sale. Where I teach you how this all works. It's not the way you think. It's from real-world, in-person selling. The thing about in-person selling that we learned is we got to see how the company works. We were physically in the meetings. We walked the halls. We went to lunch. We had coffee. It taught us a lot. I know the phone is more productive. From a time standpoint, and Zoom is really good for showing people stuff. But boy, when you're in front of somebody, when you are wearing a badge or visitor's badge and you can walk the halls, you get a sense of what's really going on. You can read the situation so much better. And that's why you should learn from the people who have done that, because it's very different than the ones that are checking in. Touching base, seeing how it's going. You're basically hearing from the champion and you take that as fact. That's not fact. That's their perception at best and more tinted to get you to do something that they want.

Hmm.

And guess what they want? And you— we believe that stuff and we do what they ask. And then we do the next call and it's pretty much more of the same. This is something that you— people typically only learn it after mistake after mistake after mistake. Remember, a genius learns from others' mistakes.

Okay?

And I've got a bunch of mistakes I want to teach you about to save you a lot of time and crush your number this year. So yeah, you can sit around and read books, but it's much more interactive. So with these courses, let me give you a sense of what you get. Basically, you get the ability to listen in on all the past office hours. Now there's over 100 of them. Now you don't want to have to listen to all of them, but if you do, you can. You want to hear questions and answers and debate and discussion. As opposed to vanilla training. It's really how do you win the deal and understand how companies buy. It's not what to say or just what to say. Everybody thinks, oh, if you get them focused on the problem, they're going to buy. Well, it's not up to them. You get their interest. You get their They want to buy, but they're not, as they say, the decision maker. Now, think about the sale that we talked about today. Who's the decision maker?

Hmm.

The budget owner may be finance, the users of it. RevOps might have the budget. They probably initiated it. The VP of sales needs to have a well-designed comp plan. They go away in October to study all this stuff and model it. It's pretty hard because today you have customer success, you've got marketing, you've got SDRs and AEs and all these people that get comped on deals, and you've got to make sure they get paid properly. You know, you know what they're thinking. And you have salespeople who want to understand it. They don't need to get, you know, ChatGPT to understand it. You want to understand how you get paid. So give Tyler or Taylor a LinkedIn connection request, and we'll see you next time. If you happen to see some of my posts Especially the ones where I'm looking for great salespeople and great sales leaders. Give it a little like, a little comment, a little share. That way it gets more visibility and I get the very best salespeople on the show. And if you don't happen to see it and you see one of my videos, give it a thumbs up, will you? I'd appreciate it. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.