ve BINAR: Land & Expand - 6 Simple Strategies to Grow your Company's Top and Bottom Line

Welcome everyone. A few housekeeping notes at the beginning. We're recording this webinar and making it available later on on our website and share it with everyone that's that registered. We ask everyone to stay muted during the duration of the webinar and there will be a Q and A at the end. If you feel you want to put a question in the chat during the webinar, just put it down there. We'll be monitoring the chat and getting those questions addressed as well. And so welcome to this, the second April edition of the Vibinar topic is a topic of interest to everyone. Whether you're in sales or you run a business, increasing sales and doing so effectively is of interest to everyone. And our guest, Patty Watkins has developed a land and expand framework where she's using proven strategies and will be sharing those with us during the webinar. Patti, why don't you introduce yourself real quick so that people get a sense of what you've accomplished in your career so far.

Sure. Again, Patti Watkins. I started my career as an se. I programmed in five languages and then I quickly saw those guys making very little money compared to all the sales guys. So I went into sales and I've been in sales for decades. And I've done a lot of startups within big companies. I grew a team from 0 to 50 million, another from 0 to 100 million, and another from 0 to 200 million in one year. So I started off with a real roar. And then I also had existing teams. I worked for companies like NCR, Teradata, AT&T and AT HP. I had a team that was 500 million. Wasn't used to big existing teams. I was used to building them. But I grew a team from 500 million to 900 million in one year. And then I also ran a $2 billion group. So I've but I've worked with a lot of startups building from scratch in these big companies, doing a lot of incubator business. And my passion is really building, building on a solid foundation. So that's my background and today I work on a number of boards and I do fractional sales. Sales roles. Great.

Well, welcome Patty. The title of your framework is Land and Expand and that's a phrase I hear very frequently as a strategy in sales. But we shouldn't be assuming that. We all know and all think that it what it means and we're all aligned on it. So what is your definition of what land and expand actually means?

So as a premise for, for this conversation, Land and Expand to Me Land is the first opportunity that you sell within an existing customer. So your first deal at Land know Google is your land. The expand is every single add on sale. If it's more users to that one customer, if it's, you know, new locations, those are all expansion land to the initial sale, which is the land. That's my definition.

Okay, wonderful. So the, the, the land and expand framework as we will learn includes six strategies. But before we start talking about those strategies, what does, what do you mean by framework? Can you tell us more about what that means? And in, in for your book and for your approach.

So thanks for asking that. So the book is. Is the six simple strategies and the six simple strategies to land or to grow your top and bottom line. To grow your top and bottom line, your profit and revenues. You could do a hundred different things. But throughout my career it was like, Patty, stop. Just pick five or six things and focus on those. So that's what this book does. It focuses on the basics, the fundamentals, the most important things, the table stakes that everyone should do to be able to grow their top and bottom line. So there are six fundamentals. They spell out expand and we'll elaborate on each one of those. Each E, X, P, A, N, D. But what I will also say is this is a warning. You're not going to learn six new things you've never heard of before. You're not. These are fundamentals. These are things that are proven, battle tested. The great thing about them is literally you could leave today with these six strategies and implement them and they will make a difference, either one of them or all six of them. And the best part about it is no matter what size company you are, they can be at low or no cost. So these are the six fundamental proven strategies.

Okay, well, on the, on the back cover of your book, right, you share your reasons for writing the book or the goals that you had in mind. You talk about the, the, the research that went into it. You talk about the real life experiences and the things that readers can put to immediate use in their business and in their, in their approach. So with those three goals in mind, why do you propose here that we focus on existing accounts with the expansion strategy?

Yeah. So existing customers, not only from experience and again, there's stories throughout the book. There's also a lot of research. So I'm going to actually read some of that research today. I'll give a couple of quotes. So existing customers. Here's a quote. According to Gartner Group, an average of 80% of the company's future revenue will come from 20% of the current customer base. You better make sure those existing customers are well taken care of. According to Forbes, it's significantly easier to sell your solutions to your existing customers than to a prospect you don't have a relationship with. I'm all about accelerating sales and doing it as fast and efficiently as I can. The other thing is that during good times and bad, and we've had several of them Covid, recessions, inflations, current restrictions, the marketplace, layoffs. During good times, too, but during bad as well, you need to be focused on existing customers because it's a proven strategy and you already have the relationship. But most importantly, they drive more profit to the company, they drive more revenue to the company, and they're easier to sell to, which is so important right now when things are, when a lot of belts are tightening.

And as a sales leader, I would, I mean, I would put a check mark on all three of these points. But since you, you highlight the research that went into the book. The, the question of, are they, are existing accounts easier to sell to? Is there research that actually supports that.

That notion that they're easier to sell to? Yes, there's research from marketing that if you're going after a net new customer, the close rate is 5 to 20% stuff 5 to 20%. And it's slow and there's more decision makers and it's a large, long, arduous process. Sometimes you have to do, you know, the contracts, the vendor approval you have to do, serve. Maybe you got security questionnaires and privacy questionnaire. It's longer, it's 5 to 20% close rate. Plus it's a longer close rate. In contrast to that, an existing customer has a 60 to 70% close rate. 60 to 70. So where would you rather spend your time? I want faster sales. But not only is it a higher probability, but it is shorter because you already have the contracts in place, you already have a proven relationship, you're already an approved vendor and you've already proven, and this is the most important thing, you've already proven that you can bring value. So would you, you know, is the new client going to go as quickly with you as the one you've proven? Value. And they say, how else can you bring value to our company? So there's a lot of research on that.

Yeah, let's, let's start talking about those six strategies. And just to start us out, let me share here the, the whole framework. And maybe before you start talking about the first strategy, the E just walk us through those six and then I'll stop sharing the screen again and we'll focus on on the you and as a speaker again.

Okay, so you know, the key is that in good times or bad, a lot of people look at this as how to recession proof your sales. This is the sales framework, the land and expand sales framework. First you have to land. But the six strategies, again, the foundational ones that are critical table stakes. E is for exceptional customer service and customer experience. Customer experience is the foundation. Without that, the rest of it is moot. And then how am I going to grow? How am I going to expand? That's critical through upsell and cross sell. P is how do I promote my product? How do they know what you have to sell? Cross sell and upsell. A is align. You need to align with your customers. We'll get more into that. But things like account business plans and really understanding your clients, making sure that you meet in quarterly business reviews. Again to align and make sure you each understand the direction that you're going in and how you can better support each other in net promoter score and customer satisfaction surveys. The foundation of this is find out what's working, what's not, and how can you better serve your customer. It is a customer sat survey. We'll get into it later, but it doesn't have to be anything elaborate. I have a lot of clients who say early stage startups. Oh, we're, we're not ready for that. The most important thing is when you come out with a new product is to ask what's working, what's not, and how can I improve my product? So there's more to that. But that, that is a super, super important one. And then the key is since exceptional customer service and experience is the most important thing, you need everyone in your company thinking about delighting your customers daily. And the arrow that goes down to referral selling and the arrow from the E that goes down to referral selling. When you do those two things, you are going to get referral sales. Referral sales helps you land more customers. So it's a whole cycle. Referral selling is the best sales strategy, the highest probability of close of any sales strategy. It is phenomenal and we'll talk more about that later too. But it does all feed into itself. But exceptional customer experience and delighting your customers daily are table stakes. To get referral selling and everything in the middle are foundational things that every company needs to do. There you go. Great.

Thank you, Patti. Now let's dive deep into the E the exceptional customer service. And let's keep the three goals in mind, because I'd love for you to share the research that you've, that you've assembled, because the proof is in the pudding. You know why we, while we might all believe that exceptional customer service is a foundational strategy, let's have the stats and the numbers and the research speak for itself. Floor is yours, Pat.

I'm going to start with why customer experience is so important. I think everyone on this call knows why it's so important, but I'm just going to drive the point home with some more of that research. So this was a study, the Future Customer experience report by PwC. They surveyed 15,000 consumers and found that one in three customers, one in three will leave a brand they love after one bad experience. That should shake everybody. One bad experience. Now, what's worse than that is what they found in the same survey is after two to three bad experiences, 92% will leave. So customer experience is so vitally important. The other thing is now with sas, for many of us, it's got to be sticky, but it's not as sticky as it used to be. And if you don't have exceptional customer service and you have one bad experience, you could lose a significant portion of your base. 2 to 3 bad experiences and 92% could leave. So that's huge. Another study by American Express, they did a customer service barometer, found that more than half of Americans scrapped a planned purchase because of a bad service. 50%. Another one by Harvard Business Review said average Americans lose 50% of their customers every five years. Two thirds of them were cited due to bad service. Another study, this one was by Accenture, showed that the US estimated lifetime cost of customers switching is $1.6 trillion. So customer experience is vitally important. The other one that's really important to note too is customer experience is important. But Gartner Group had stated that over 89% of companies believe that customer experience is the foundation. It's the most basic part of their business. So we all need to be doing this. If we're not one of that 89%, we're out of the loop. So the key is customer experience. Delivering an exceptional customer experience is the foundation for the whole model. Every company has to do it. And it's important for new companies, as I mentioned, because you want to test and make sure all of your customers are excited, you know, delighted working with you, because those are the ones are the cornerstone for you to get referrals. They're the ones that are going to give you expansion revenue. And you need to hold on to every single customer that you have. One bad experience losing 33% or 33% would leave if two or three bad experiences. And when you're new, everything needs to be focused on the customer. It needs to be. Everyone in the whole company is thinking about it. What you need to do when you sell someone your product, woohoo, you sold the sale, ring the bell and then you move on to the next one. That's the disaster. What you need to do is make sure you've alleviated their pain, you've met their outcomes and if you've done that, then you have the opportunity to upsell and to cross sell. If you haven't met their needs, you failed. So that's super important. You need to have a relentless focus on this. And again in SaaS it's paramount because it is a, you know, a model that has high churn in it. So again, table stakes for this one. Exemplary customer experience. That's the focus and foundation of every business. And just think, if you don't win, bad experience could lead to 33% loss of your customers leaving you. So that's really the key there for customer experience. Make sure that you have customer loyalty and retention. Because one of the things I didn't mention earlier is that there's studies done that show that your average customer's lifetime value is 10x their initial purchase. When you think about 10x your initial purchase, you want to make sure that that first purchase the land drives additional sales. And so making sure you provide exemplary experience. Customer experience. And then the other question to ask yourself is are you better than your competitors? Because 89 of them percent, 89% of them are competing on customer experience. Are you better? So that's, that's the overview for E for exemplary customer experience.

Well those are definitely powerful statistics and research. So thank you for sharing that. Let's move on to the X. The next strategy. What does X stand for?

X I cheated a little bit. It's expansion. The exp. Expansion revenue and cross sell. And upsell. So again, you've landed the customer. That is where you have to start. You've got to provide exemplary customer experience. And when you do that, here's your opportunity to upsell and cross sell. Here's some quotes. On average loyal customers are worth up to 10 times. I mentioned that before. That's huge. So what are those upsell cross sell opportunities to help get to that 10 times lifetime value or growth. It's been shared that Amazon generates more than 35% of their profits through cross selling. Last time you went to Amazon when they said people who bought this also bought that. Are you doing something like that in your business? People who bought this product also bought that one. And then we also talked about new getting new logos, 5 to 20% close rate, whereas existing businesses upsell and cross sell is 60 to 70%. So again, I'm spending my time there for a number of reasons. The key is that the customer needs to trust you. You have contracts in place and you're delivering value to them. It's a lot easier than a new logo where you don't have a relationship with with. They also are known to buy 67% more than a net new customer would. Why? Because they already have contracts in place. You've proven your value. It's a faster sales cycle, but they don't have to test the waters like the new logo does. They already have more confidence in you. So 67% higher values on average than net new customers. Now, with this, you could say, well, what would I upsell, cross sell? Maybe your product strategy is bronze, silver and gold. And Maybe you've got P.S. and maybe you got training, and maybe you've got some other solutions. What are the other opportunities within that company that you could upsell or cross sell? It's not only product, it's also, can I get more users off of my current bronze solution? Do I have other locations? Do I have other divisions, departments? Could I sell this across the globe? And we'll talk further on how to do your research on what are the other opportunities. But then you could conduct a white space analysis, which is one of my favorite tools that says, all right, customer A, you're buying bronze for me today. But there could be silver, gold, there could be PS or could be training, whatever the other solutions are. Oh, and I also, through research, found out that you've Austin, New York and Seattle. I've also got those locations for all of these solutions and I've got more users. And you start making this matrix for just one customer and then you say, wow, there's a tremendous amount of opportunity here. 60 to 70% close rate. I've got referrals, potentially, which is the best, highest probability. And I put together this white space and then I put in, what's the average selling price for each one of these? And voila. This afternoon, I've got a big fat pipeline. It's not fully qualified, but it's a lot better than the single lead I got in this morning from The SDR that I need to go qualify. So it's a quick way to put together a quick, quick pipeline and then go work that.

Yeah, I think so.

The key here is.

Yeah, go ahead, Patty. Sorry.

I was going to say some of the takeaways are, you know, customers on average that their first purchase is 1/10 of their total lifetime purchases from you. Clearly expansion revenue drives more revenue and profit and revenue is significantly higher as well as profit. They say that a 5% increase by Bain & Co. Can cause a 5 to 25 to 95% increase in profit. So they drive more revenue and profit and again, they're easier to sell to and they're fast to sell to. So expansion, revenue, upsell and cross sell and focus on those white space analysis and get your immediate pipeline. This afternoon.

You already talked about the white space analysis a little bit. The next strategy P is programs and promotions. Is white space analysis a program or how, how do you move from the, the, the X to the P? What are examples of programs and promotions?

Yeah, so a couple of things here. So P promote. If you don't tell your client, your customers what you have to upsell and cross sell, how are they going to know? I would pretty much say they're not going to your website out of boredom and going, I wonder what else is on Henning's website. You know, you have to tell them. So instead of having them go to your website, you want to push out there. So some of the things you can do to promote are as simple as do you have a newsletter that goes out every month that says, hey, here's the highlights of our new products and here's some case studies that might be pertaining to their same business problems. Are you doing QBRs? Are you doing EBRs, executive business reviews? Do your CX people have regular updates and they talk about what are those expansion, upsell and cross sell opportunities? It's all about promoting. What do you have that would help solve their business problems? It's not throwing stuff at the wall per se. You really want to be as specialized as you can. But how are you communicating? Do you have roadmap reviews? Again, how good is your website if you can get them there? You got to push them to the website because you don't want to have to have them pull everything off themselves. As far as promotions and programs, those words can get blurred a little bit, but it's not that relevant. Promotions are typically, from my perspective, short term and duration. So a promotion is something that's something like this quarter only we're going to run this promotion because we have this new product and it's a try and buy program or we've got this new program and it's a bundle and it's only available this quarter. The cool thing is it creates a compelling event that says this quarter, quarter only. And maybe I can drive up this quarter's sales. It might be a promotion that is a holiday sale. It might be a promotion that is, you know, a group promotion. I'm going to do this for this particular group. It might be special discounts and promotions that are run but there's a multitude of promotions, typically short term and duration with a date. A compelling event. A program on the other side tends to be something that's going to run all year long. It might be a loyalty program. As you buy product from us, we'll give you points that you could applied towards discounts or additional products in the future. Training programs, referral programs such that if you give us a referral we'll give you points and you can apply them towards training credits. It might be a customer advisory board, it might be a user group, it could be group discounts to. I'll just make this up aaa but it's something that's longer in duration. But again all of these opportunities to create loyalty referrals, upsell and cross sell. The bottom line with P is you've got to tell your customers the other products that you have. You've got to let them know, you've got to promote them through words, formal or informal, it doesn't matter. It could be low or no cost but you need to get the word out. That's the most important thing because again if you don't tell them, who will?

Yes, and obviously these programs and promotions are broadly. If you have a newsletter for example, broadly published. And that really leads us to the next strategy which is A stands for account business plans. After reading the book, I assume it really means that you don't just randomly throw stuff out but you have a plan for each account account on how to upsell, when to upsell and what, what really makes the most sense for each, each. Each one of the clients that you've landed.

Yeah, I've worked with a lot of really big companies and we have, you know, billion dollar accounts and you're going to have a strategic account plan with that customer so that they know what you're doing, you know what they're doing. And we would go take off sites and we would build them together and we would work them from the top and the bottom. But the key thing is about this whole area is understanding your customer. This is a quote that has stuck with me for years. I'm a research nut. But this is something from Forrester's research buyer insight study. And the study came back that only 13% of customers believe 13% believe salespeople can demonstrate an understanding of their business challenges. I find that so awful. That translates to 87% of salespeople aren't doing their jobs, they're not researching their customers. And to not know what the business problem is is really criminal because we're not here to sell stuff. We're here to solve business problems. We're here to help them achieve an outcome. But if I don't know what their problem is, how can I help them solve it? So the thing about account business plans is this is or QBRs, which is also part of this. It's really all about alignment. The easiest way for you to differentiate yourself over 80% of the other people out there is to keep an awareness. Do your research on the customer, keep a pulse on the customer. Make sure you're constantly aware of what's important to them, what are their initiatives, what's working, what's not working, how can I better serve you? It's that constant communication. And with this, the most important thing is don't ever write a business plan. You need to. If you plan to get somewhere, write a business plan, an account business plan. Otherwise you're just throwing stuff and seeing what sticks. But if you want to go for your goals and you get on a path to success, you write a business plan or an account business plan in this case, if you're not going to do that, at least do your research. And do not call in a customer before you've checked out their website. Know what industry they're in, know who their competitors are. See if you have similar customers within your base that might have applicable solutions that might be of interest to them so that you exhibit you do understand their business challenges but still ask more questions. So in an account business plan, you're probably going to have a customer overview. And this the good thing about account business plan, it's not just for the for the account manager, it's for the PS people, it's for the support people, it's for everyone in the organization, the consultants that support this customer. We all understand through this account business plan, the customer overview, the top initiatives. That's really important. They need to understand what their business problems are. What are similar, you know, issues with other customers, top initiatives, locations I want to do upsell and cross sell. What are there other locations around the globe? If I don't know what they are and I'm selling to San Francisco and I'm oblivious that they have Austin and Seattle and New York, then I've missed out on three quarters of my upsell opportunity. Who are the decision makers? What are some recent news, some that you can just compliment them on and say, I'm staying on top of your business. I saw that incredible accolade you got last week. Or again, initiatives, you can add the white space analysis to this that says, okay, here's my understanding of the business and here's my potential pipeline and it's part of my business plan. And I got to tell you, you add up those ASPs average selling price for the potential potential on your white space and you can walk away later today and say, man, I got some opportunity. So if one of your reps is feeling down, do a white space analysis and help them fill it in. The other is on QBRs and EBRS, making sure that you're regularly staying in touch with the customer, understanding their business problems, their ongoing business problems, and how you can better serve them. And my big question for all of them is, what's working, what's not working? How can I better serve you? And also putting into that in your QBRs, your white space and not white space, putting in your voice of the customer, always listening, always aligning. These are table stakes, any size company. You've got to research them. You need to understand their business problems because again, 87% of salespeople don't. So you can differentiate yourself pretty easily that way. So takeaways, show your customers you understand their business. That's absolutely foundational. Make sure that you understand you're meeting their needs, meet with them regularly. If you're not meeting their needs, find out now so that you can solve them before you come up to the renewal. And they say, you guys have been so unresponsive for six months. We've had this problem for a month and you've done nothing. So keeping a close pulse on all of your customers is how you're going to retain them, retain them, upsell, cross sell and get referral, selling. It all works together. And again, if you do this, you do differentiate yourself. It's sad. It's an easy way to differentiate and that is A in the expand framework.

Wow. Let's move on to the N. You already hinted that N as a net promoter score is something that startup founders, smaller companies sometimes question whether it's applicable to them. Talk to us how it's important for large companies, but also for small ones.

And that's what's so important here. A lot of people look at this when they go up. Not me. You know, we don't do nps. That's for big companies. Well, there's nps, which is net promoter score from Bain, and there's also satisfaction surveys. And there's also simple things like asking in a QBR or asking in a call what's working, what's not, how can we better serve you? And how's the product? And the voice of the customer is, what are the expectations? What are the experiences they're getting? Those are free. Anyone can do those things. And again, no matter the size of the company, it's asking the question. You could send out an email survey. You know, there's. There's so many things that you can do that at different levels. But the bottom line is you have got to ask your customer, are they satisfied? And if they're not, and the, the key is, don't just say, you know, fill out the survey and, you know, I'll get it back and I'll file in the drawer somewhere. I want the survey back so that I can respond back to you and let you know we're working on those things. Most of people never hear back from a survey. It's like, I'm glad I did the survey. They haven't done anything. Right. Probably all been there. I fill out the survey, I get the call back that says, thank you for your feedback, Patty. We're working on this, this, this, and this. Wanted to let you know we're going to keep you, you know, on track of it. And then we want to make sure that's meeting your needs. Wow. That doesn't happen. And that's again, how you differentiate yourself. But why are you gathering information from people if you're not going to do anything about it? So gather the information. Thank them. Thank you so much for your time and filling that out. People are. A lot of people are sick of filling out surveys. And then let them know you care and do something about it. Here's some more quotes. According To Bloom tools, 7 out of 10 of your customers will leave you because they believe you don't care. How easy is it to show them we care about what you think? Say the words. I mean, again, everything in this book is foundational. It's obvious, it's simple, it's proven. These are table stakes. These are things. Six easy, simple things that we all need to be doing another thing, another bit of research. Think your customers are satisfied? Only 15% of consumers would agree with another one. According to Understanding Customers, a typical business hears from 4% only 4% of his dissatisfied customers, leaving 96% of customers who never voice their complaints. And 91% of those customers will leave. Only 4% are going to say they're not dissatisfied. So what, are they only sending you nasty grams because they're upset? Or are you proactively reaching out to them and saying, you know, we want to make sure that we, you know, our business is delighting our customers and delivering on your needs and expectations. How are we doing? How can we better serve you? Easy, easy. Things to ask. Again, formal or informal, the key is just ask. Maybe it's 10 questions, maybe it's an email, maybe it's a net promoter score. And there's three areas there. There's promoters, they rate you a nine or a 10. There's the passive, there are seven or an eight. You better do something about that. Reach out to those guys and say, hey, I saw where you're rated as a 7 or an 8. How can we better serve you? How can we get you up to that 9 or 10? And 9 or 10 says that they will refer you to somebody else. That's nirvana. But not only that, if they rate you a nine or a 10, Baines, who is the net promoter score people, they say that their net promoter systems leaders on average grow at more than twice the rate of their competitors. So if you are going to do nps, take it seriously because if you're one of the system leaders for those promoters and they're going to give you referrals, which is the ultimate thing you want, you could grow at two times your competitors because you care, because you focus on it makes a big difference. And if you have a six or below, those are bad. Those are detractors. They could damage your business and they could really do a number on you in social media. So you do need to pay attention. But like I said, you know, if you only do one thing, it's what's working, what's not working and how can I serve you better? And that's critically important. So again, don't just gather the surveys, do something about them. Get back with them and let them know. And let them know you care because 70% of them. Thank you. Don't.

And your, Your statistic of 4% businesses only hear back from 4% of their dissatisfied clients. I can relate to that as a consumer because when I get asked for my opinion. I walk away from 19 out of 20 surveys because I don't ever expect that my input is going to make a difference in, in how they're behaving or their product or their customer service. So proactively, I'm staying away. Let's talk about delight your. Delight your customers daily. The D, the last letter of the expand framework. So what are examples or what are good ways to delight clients?

So there's many ways to delight your customer. But first, let me start out with every single interaction that someone has with your company. Part of the CX impacts their perspective of you. And delighted customers buy more. Customers who are not delighted don't buy more. So it's kind of binary. You need to delight them every day. Think about your kids in school and they bring home an A and you are eliminating related. You did a phenomenal job. You got an A, that's great. And then think about when your kid brings home the B and you go, well, that's really good, honey, but you know, we need a little bit of improvement. We'll get you to that. A. The C is you are you. You're not really trying very hard. Okay, well, maybe there's different perspectives in your family, but that was how it was growing up in mine. And you want to be an A. And if you're delivering to your customer service, you want them to say they are A or A, they're great to work with. B, hey, you got some work to do. See, you're probably not very exciting to them. So the key is, is that to really strive for not only meeting those expectations, but exceeding those expectations and some of the things that you can do. And this is, I love this Airbnb. You may have heard the story the CEO was looking at how do we create a five star experience? And they really did a phenomenal job of jumping up above. You know, I worked with VRBO for years and one of the rental properties I had and, and other ones, but these guys just went through the roof. Instead of having a five star experience, how do we create a six star experience? A seven star, an eight, a nine, a ten and eleven. And, and they went through this and it got to the point of ridiculousness. You know, that Elon Musk is going to greet you there and take you up in space, you know, but they were all these degrees breeze of how can you do this? Well, the last time I went to an Airbnb, I went in and there was a bottle of champagne. I'm like, that was number Six. That was number six on the list. And there's water in the fridge, you know. So it's really thinking about how to delight the customer. And here's a list that was created by by HubSpot actually solve customers problems. When you call into tech support and they can't solve your problem, you are dissatisfied. But when you've tried and tried and tried and they finally fix it and you're like thank you, you solved my problem. Solving customer problems is number one. Be timely, be helpful. These are all things you can do to delight your customers. And every single employee in the company thinks needs to think about it every single day. If you are in legal or you are in billing or you're in finance or you're in collections or you're in sales or you're in marketing or support, no matter group you're in that interaction with that customer could be the one that has a is a problem and my gardener just showed up. Sorry for the noise outside. Be helpful. Help customers succeed. Listen to customer feedback. Be enthusiastic. Be unexpected. Some other things. Write a note, let them know you care. Congratulations on such and such award that you just got. Set the bar high. Sending cookies. We actually used to send cupcakes to some of our local people and just put it in the break room. Just thanking them for their current for their new business. Getting to know your customers, asking about their kids, asking about their family, Being a customer advocate, saying thank you. It is not weird to say thank you for your business and thank you for that compliment. Thank you for everything. You know, for being such a great company to work with. Maybe you treat them to birthday coffee, remembering dates, checking in. It's all those little things that can be such big things because it shows that you really care. So again, delighting your customers, it's like exemplary customer experience. You have to deliver it. You have to delight them daily because they're going to come up for a renewal if they don't renew. You could lose 10x future business. That customer, if they do renew with you, they could provide referrals which is another key thing and all that expansion revenue. So delighting your customers every day. Make sure every employee in your company knows it's not sales jobs or it's not CX's job. It's literally every single person in the company needs to delight your customers daily. Because one bad experience, 33% of customers.

Could leave powerful reminders. Especially the emphasis on doing it daily or doing it on a very regular basis. This isn't a one off delight but a Continuous delight, ensuring upselling, cross selling, renewals, and the 10x of lifetime value that you mentioned earlier. Quick reminder here, since we're coming towards the end of our session. There'll be a Q and A shortly. But before we get there, let's talk about the referral selling that is a big part of the framework and that really, if, if I visualize the expand and the, the visual we had earlier, it really connects both sides of the the expand framework. So what are some of the highlights in your career that you've seen in referral selling? What should people look out for?

So I'll start with some stats first. Referral selling. Referral selling accounts for as much as 65% of new business. The key is exemplary customer service, delighting your customers daily. And those people will provide referrals. What's interesting is 91% of them on average will provide a referral. If you're providing a great customer experience, 91% just by asking will say yes. The scary thing is 11% on average if salespeople ask. So you really need to get all your teams to really get into the habit of asking. But I'll talk about some of the ways to make it easier. Another stat is 83 of people trust recommendations from friends and family above all other forms of marketing. You can tell everybody how great you are your company is, but the key is that they want to see those recommendations from friends and family. According to HubSpot, 9 and 10 buying decisions are made with peer recommendations. And another great stat is sales reps who actively seek out and explore exploit referrals earn four to five times more than those who don't. Referral selling tends, you know, can be 65% of your business. It's a great way to get the land. And it's a lot easier to get the land when it comes from a referral than it is to get from a cold call. So it really is the pinnacle of exemplary customer support and delighting your customers as referral selling. If you can base your whole business on referral selling and never have to do another cold call, that is the ultimate. You know, one of the things that I would do is when do you ask someone for a referral? Don't ask everybody. That's, you know, it's not comfortable. But if someone gives you that NPS net promoter score of 9 or 10, that says, would you be willing to refer my customer? Perfect time to say, hey, would you be willing to refer us to, you know, to these other departments or divisions? And I know because I Did an account business plan that they have Seattle and New York and Eric, you know, wherever else, Austin. So I know what those locations are and I can say, would you be willing to give me a referral over to the Austin location? I looked up. The decision maker looks to be John Doe. Is John Doe the right guy? If you've asked for a referral and they say yes, because 91% of them will, they will. However, they're busy people. So what I frequently will do is say, you know, would it be helpful if I wrote an email for you that says everything you just said, all the compliments you gave us in the, you know, everything you said about the NPS or in a qbr when they say, you guys rock, you guys have made such a difference, the outcomes, all the wonderful things in a QBR is a great time to say, oh, you know, our business is based on referrals. Would you be willing to refer me down to John Doe down in the Austin? So look for opportune times. If they're in your customer advisory board, if they've given you testimonials, if they've given you quotes, if they've set up something complimentary, you're at lunch or dinner and they say your company rocks. Whenever you hear a positive piece of feedback, then you can say, would you be willing to be a referral for us? You know, our business is based on referrals and they say yes 91% of the time. And then I typically, to make it easier, say, would it be helpful if I wrote that email for you? And I'll write everything you just said, but I'm only going to draft it for you. I'm only going to draft it because I want it to be in your own word. But would that help you? And I don't know about you, but I love it when someone gives me a draft because then I can change it very quickly and I'm done versus a blank sheet of paper. So I write up something. Don't write too much, but use their words. I send them over the email. Now they feel guilty. They said yes, they were too busy, they couldn't have done it on their own. But now you. They've said they do it. You gave them an email, you did the work. Chances are very high that email's going out and you've just created that warm lead to John Doe down in Austin. So referral selling again. If you focus on it and do it at the right times, it can be a phenomenal tool to explode your sales. There's Actually in the book there's lots of templates, but there's another one on on make a list of who might be potential referrals and track it so that you're constantly when do I ask, when do I ask? How do I ask? And I have a library. HubSpot has a library too of these referral letters that you can leverage. So there's a ton of resources out there to help you do it. So that's referral selling. Customers trust the recommendations and referral selling is the highest close rate sales strategy available. If you focus on it, salespeople are four to five times more. That's powerful.

And just as a reminder, what's the close rate on a referral sale?

You know what? I think it's 65% close rate on referral sales.

That's a powerful number to keep in mind. So let's move on to Q and A. Just unmute yourself if you have a question and maybe to make it a little easier, Andrew, if you can kick us off with either a question or something you saw in the chat.

Thanks very much Hanni Patti, wonderful. Love your, your insights and pearls of wisdom. I, I feel I've grown up in the world that you're describing. So just a question about personal relationship driven, customer driven. The manual approach versus automated. The world that you're describing seems to be more and more opaque for somehow it just seems over the last decade with all of the tools and the technologies only barriers have grown between companies and their customers and salespeople and their customers customers. So I'm just curious kind of with in with your perspective, this personal manual, relationship driven asking, being engaged with the customer versus where we actually are today. From my point of view with, with the tools and the bells and the whistles that have removed customers and salespeople from their customers. Do you know what I'm referring to? So what's your perspective on automation tools, the so called productivity tools to help scale and improve efficiency. But to me it's the reverse.

So while my gardeners. Sorry, I kept putting it on mute. So you think about product LED growth. Okay, we think about product led growth and we say we have to have an exemplary experience. Your product has to have an exemplary experience. Bottom line, that's the whole premise of plg. Then how do you do upsell and cross sell? Same thing within. Within plg. You need an upsell cross sell. You need the product to actually show what those upsell cross sell opportunities are. So to your point. Yes. You're automating it in Your PLG strategy plc plg product led growth different than sales and marketing. And this clearly can be sales or marketing, what you heard today, but it's also plg. I need the upsell cross sell in my product. Promote it. You promote it through your product. You're removing, not removing, you're just putting in a different place. Sales and marketing. I still have to promote in my plg. Absolutely. Because I want to automate that. And that's the movement away from SAS to plg. Now, when I say account business plans and customer and QBRs, you still need to be aligned with your customers. It's really important that you know who your, your ideal customer profile is, who your Persona are, who it is, who you're aligned to. You need to make sure that that product can do that, that you are absolutely a aligned to the customer. Net promoter scores. And again, as I said, may not be an nps. A lot of small companies don't use it. Big ones that I work for did. But customer service, that's built into the product. You have got to ask every single moment. Not every moment, but all the time, if the customer is satisfied. I can put in the five stars, I can put in the three stars. What is your feedback on this product? I get it all the time on, on a lot of the software apps that I use. What is your satisfaction with this product? Send us a note. Would you, would you refer us to others? What was the last time you got one of those? And when you went to the whatever appointment and afterwards they said would you refer us to someone else? So you're still doing the, the in or the satisfaction survey and delighting your customers daily. That is built into plg if you're going to exceed. So is that what you were thinking?

Yeah, yeah.

It's still relevant. It's just. Is it appealed product led growth, Is it sales led growth or is it marketing led growth? Every single one. Like I said, there's so many things you can do about so much, but you want to upsell, cross sell, land and expand. This applies to sales led, market led or product led.

Okay, Tracy, you unmuted yourself.

Just a comment in, in support of what Patty's saying and there's some open overlap and our backgrounds is two things I think. You know, PLG is here. It's cool, right? So. And as an enterprise person, I saw PLG and got all excited. A lot of my peers did not. At the end of the day, the common denominator on how you sell, what the selling experience is like, is passion. Around the solution and what's fixing, what's it solving for, right? So go back to root cause people. Are you hiring transactional people that have just taken automation and put it on autopilot and aren't engaging? And that's, that's what you feel as a recipient of that automation. You have the wrong person, you know, selling something because you can't put anything on autopilot anymore. And if you have a solution of any merit or cost, even the engagement experience is everything. So there's new. Just look at automation around teaching. You know, new kids, XDRs coming out of college to use some of the writing tools. They may not have that gift to engage a little better in that outbound outreach if it's net new. So that the message with training and coaching so they're, they're taught to engage in a different level transaction. Selling is dead. Automation put a fork in it, right? We get those emails, delete, delete, it's not going to work anymore. And everybody knows that. And current conditions have made that accentuated. So you have to change how you manage this process and the, you know, agile response to how buyers are changing. But I want to switch to NPS because I'm a big fan and used to run Customer Gauge, which is the enterprise platform for NPS globally and built that team. The thing you got to remember about nps, everybody says, oh, it's too complicated, the system's too difficult. Little companies, it cost me money. You can actually, you can do it for free. There's a lot of free tools. The reason you should even get young early companies on NPS is because the street pays attention to nps. So and it takes time to build NPS scores and satisfaction. But it's a score and the street loves a score. So if you're a young company that wants a good valuation and everybody that you're having conversations with about your valuation say, oh, I see you do nps. What's your score and where are you in the range? You know, software might be in the mid-70s, would be very high for net promoter. You tell a founder that, man, they're on NPS like crazy. What do you think? Pavilion uses nps, right? So Pavilion is not a big organization as a team, but they, they live in Manhattan, right? They're going to pay attention to what the street's paying attention to. So if you have those conversations around experience and, and you're coaching somebody to help them get on board, just steer them that way because it'll save them a lot of trouble. Later.

Good.

Great topic, Pat.

Thanks.

Great. Well, thank you Tracy, for sharing that. Any other questions before we wrap it up? If there are not, then Patti, I'll, I'll give you the floor for, for some final thoughts and I'll go and share how people can get in touch with you on the screen here. But Patti, why don't you close us out?

Sure. Now. And I do appreciate the question Andrew that you brought up because this does apply to it. They're the foundation apply to however you go to market. And it's critical that with these six things plus referral selling, they're guaranteed, they're proven, they're battle tested, they don't have to cost anything and they're easy to remember the six strategies because they spell out expand. So trying to make that sales framework as easy as possible for people to immediately I need to go do something literally today, today that's not crazy. None of it's crazy. All foundational and I can go grow my business today. And I've been doing this for decades with basics. There is another book that I wrote called Thriving More Sales. I wrote it with a good friend of mine, colleague who worked at McKinsey and it was really designed for CEOs. A lot of CEOs in startups don't have sales and marketing background. They're really, really strong in engineering. So we wrote this book to help them with the framework. It's also great for other consultants working with companies to make sure My whole thing is make sure your foundation is solid so that you can grow and be successful on top of it. So if you're interested in reaching out to LinkedIn and connecting or asking any questions at any time, my LinkedIn is down in the right hand corner, my email address there in the middle and then the QR code is just one of my websites called Driving. I know it's Land and Expand is that one. So anyway, again I enjoyed the time today, appreciate all the great questions and, and the attendees that we had and thanks for giving me the opportunity to share these insights.

Absolutely. Thank you Patty for coming on the show and love to have you. Thank you everyone for joining and have a wonderful rest of your day. Take care. Bye Bye.

Thanks everybody. Bye.