Force Equals and Scott Finden

How's it going?

Yeah, good, good. How are you?

I'm doing fantastic. It's awesome to see you.

Yeah, it's great to see you as well. How have you been?

I've been really good. I've been really good. Crazy busy, but that's the journey exactly.

You started gig, how's it going so far?

No complaints. It's going really good. Yeah, we're, you know, for sequels has been something that's passion project of mine and hopefully we're, you know, able to deliver the promise that we think we can. So. Yeah, so far so good though. So, you know, you know, it's, it's been a while since like we were, you know, in that tiny little cramped room, you know, somewhere near St. Catherine's docks in London when we were in that startup environment at Reach Desk. I mean there's like four of us crammed into this tiny little space. When I first met you, like it's been a while.

Yeah, yeah, that would have been like late 2019, early 2020, I guess. Yeah, yeah, it's been a long time. Yeah, four, four and a half years. So much has happened since then. It's crazy. I forgotten it'd been that long since we met. You're right, we did meet back at the St. Catherine stocks.

Yeah, yeah. What a crazy, crazy coincidence. I mean, a little bit of the romanticized version of a startup right in there at the very beginning.

Yeah.

You know, you got to see, you know, how the sausage is made in a startup. Right. You know, in a modern day SaaS startup right from the beginning and lots of success along the journey and I'm sure you're going to have lots of things to talk about, about that, you know, the, the conversation today. You know, we're going to lean into like a lot of your background, a lot of like, you know, what's, you know, you, you've learned along your journey.

Yeah.

The audience for this is sales teams or sales individuals and sales teams that, you know, are looking, you know, for peers and people to look to for experience and good ideas and that's what we're sharing today.

Nice. Sounds good. Yeah, Plenty of lessons learned from the early days since then. So. Yeah.

Well, you know, why don't we start with, you know, quick introductions, you know, so that we can communicate well to the folks that, you know, are enjoying this video. I'm Mark Shabbat. So I'm founder of four Sequels AI. But I want to give you an opportunity to introduce yourself as well and explain a little bit about your background. How you got to this point, like what you're doing today, what you're excited about. Why don't we start with that?

Sounds good. Yeah. So I'm Scott Findon, I'm an a@Monday.com. i've been at Monday for a year now. I'm also a founder of a business called BD Best Practices which basically is a sales training org which basically has boiled down 5, 6 years worth of my sales learnings into a 3 hour course broken down into the 12 fundamentals kind of things that I see me and my peers applying on a day to day basis and practical, digestible, real world insights into how to execute on those 12 fundamentals. But yeah, I'm just enjoying being in B2B SaaS obviously. Mark and I worked together. You and I worked together at Reach Desk where like you said, it was the sausage factory back in the early days, the real rough and ready times of being in a startup. Saw the good, bad and the ugly and everything in between but had an amazing amount of success there and spent four and a half years with Reach Desk. I know you were there for not much less than that. Yeah. And now I'm here, still trying to learn, still learning every day and now trying to get into a point where I'm sharing some of those learnings with peers and people around me.

Yeah, sure. I mean you like go back a little bit further before Reach Desk like how did you get into sales?

So I mean I fell into sales is the short answer. I think that's the case for a lot of people. I graduated from college or uni in 2018 and I did a ski season in New Zealand which was like July through October so that was like the southern hemisphere winter. And then I came back, needed a job and my, one of my friends, one of my close friends from school was working in this job and he was like yeah, my place is always hiring so shut my CV in. Turned out it was a telesales role. I didn't really know really what I was getting into and yeah, it was just very intense. Cold calling, $200 a day Cold calling small businesses, sole traders to sell the mobile phone contracts. Very aggressive approach. It was just real smashing the phones and dialing and interrupting people in their day when they were on the roof or under a sink or you know, cutting someone's hair. Like they were very much like jobs like trades people and stuff that we were calling. But I got very good at cold calling as a result because the volume that I just did early on, the learning curve was very steep. And the one thing that company did well, there wasn't loads of things they did well, but one of the things they did do well was training and, and, and direct feedback, one to one, coaching on people's cold calling approach. So I benefited a lot from that. I think I had maybe a natural inclination for it, but I, I quickly got told about all the ticks and, you know, stutters and ums and ahs and things I was saying on calls that were potentially tripping me up. So I got a lot of feedback on that early on. And that really kind of was my foundation, I think, in sales, because I did that for say like seven, eight months, you know, making thousands of cold calls throughout that brief time. And we literally had to close the deal on, on the cold call. So you'd go from introducing yourself, getting told to piss off nine times out of ten, but then you managed to get through. And then it was a really, you know, kind of predetermined strip script, but then we had to get them through that point and then through to legals and through to credit card details on the same call. So it was a really, really tough ask. On hindsight, it's kind of crazy, but that was, that was what got me into sales. And then I realized I wanted to move to London. This was. I was living in the south of England at the time, knew I wanted to move to London, like the big smoke where everything is, and then managed to get a job with Spotify, which is like a French SEO company. I was there for like six, seven months, did really well there. I hit my target every month as a bdr, but we were like the satellite, satellite office. The core office was in Paris and in New York. And we were just a very small satel with like 10 people in it and no senior leadership. And I wasn't getting any exposure to the sausage factory. I was just sitting on the sidelines really. And I felt that. And then I had the opportunity. I got introduced actually to Alex Ollie, who is the co founder of Reach Desk, through an. Through somebody who'd hired me. Sorry, through somebody who'd interviewed me before I got hired at Botify, who was a good friend of theirs. And that's when I had the chance to speak with Alex for the first time. Had a phone call, conversation with him. Kind of sold me the dream. He's a real visionary. I think that's one of the things he's got in abundance, is the ability to paint a vision and a picture. And certainly did that with me over A phone call and then we met for a couple of beers. He showed me the kind of rudimentary version of Reach Desk, like in its very early state. And I saw the value like it was for prospecting and gifting in a kind of B2B context. And I saw massive value for how I would benefit from it and that helped me visualize how it was going to help like a whole industry of people trying to sell as well. So I kind of snatched the opportunity with both hands once I made the judgment that him and the other co founders were trustworthy enough, as much as you can judge in a kind of couple of quick meetings. And then, yeah, the rest was history. Grew to kind of 18 million 200 plus employees by the time I left. So it was an amazing journey.

And when you started there were how many? Four or five?

Yeah, it was just, well, I was the second hire in, in the uk, There was the founders, a couple of devs, Ben Smith who was the first hire, first sales hire, and then myself. So yeah, four or five. Yeah.

That's fantastic. I mean, do you think being in that, you know, with the background that you got, the initial training you got was like that experience in the startup, kind of an accelerator for you to learn? Like explain that a little bit because you know, you've only been selling for six years and I followed you since we met. You know, I've seen the coaching that you've been providing to other peers and, and folks in, in, you know, account executive roles and I'm super impressed that you've been able to, you know, learn so fast. Like what, what kind of helped you learn in that environment that kind of stands out to you?

Yeah, it's a really good question. There was a few things that really stood out to me in the early days and I can recall the kind of admiration and awe I had when I first saw these things in action. And then I've obviously over time tried to like learn them, emulate them, put my own spin on them. But I was lucky that that initial core team was amazing. So Alex Ollie himself is a phenomenal salesperson. The thing that I noticed initially about him was I shadowed a couple of calls, discovery calls with prospects, and the way he controlled the call was outstanding. The pace, the tone, the rapport building, the ability to open up the prospect, the kind of professionalism and kind of the way he kept you engaged in, in the call and then in the way that he ran it smoothly, kept things to time, set the next step. It just was so well oiled and Just so, you know, perfectly executed. And so that's what I saw a lot early on. The other thing was the work ethic, I think, you know, for six or seven months. I joined in September 2019. So we had. So we had a stint pre Covid. Just a small stint where, you know, remote work hadn't become a thing yet. And so we were sat, you know, in. Originally in a coffee, in a. In a, like, in a cafe that. In a. In a office lobby. That's where we started. And then we went to the really small office Mark, where I met you. In any case, I was sat on the same desk as the co founders. And so I got to see Alex Milan working their socks off, like, you know, heads down, working hard, staying late. And some people might say it was like hustle culture for me. It was them pursuing their passion and pursuing their dream and trying to bring their ideas to reality and doing it through, like, consistent, you know, intentional hard work. And so that was a massive lesson as well, where I realized, wow, like, this is. This is people making it happen, basically. So I think that was another key thing. And then a couple more people, obviously, I have to mention, because it's like they were pivotal for me were Ben Smith and then James Su and Patra. So Ben had. Ben was the first hire. And I think it's crazy that Alex hired him. He had no sales background. He'd skated ice skated with Disney on Ice for five years, traveled the world as a. As an ice skater, worked in PR for like a year, and then got the job of Reach desk. But he was the best BDR I've ever worked with and still is to this day. He was phenomenal at empathizing with prospects. He was so great at putting himself in the shoes of a. Of a. Of a person and using that in every interaction with them in order to get an outcome. So whether it was an objection, something they were looking to achieve, a cold prospecting email, a cold call, whatever, he would be able to put themselves in their shoes. Because I would ask him, how are you doing this? How are you doing this? He kept booking 20 meetings a month. 20 meetings a month, like, decent, qualified ops, like, and it was so impressive. But that was one of the main things I took away from him. And then James S. Patra kind of taught me how to be an AE. So when I got promoted to an AE after being a BDR for say, like 18 months of reach Desk, he. I was, you know, it was still a small team, so I got a lot of Kind of one to one support from him. He was on a lot of my calls, especially the kind of mid to late stage calls within a deal. And he again is very, very good with his, you know, the, the phrases that he uses. The, the kind of, I don't know, his demeanor is very disarming. He uses humor very well in a kind of professional context and just very good sales process as well. So all of those people, I was just acting like a sponge and I think one thing I've always been quite good at myself is having the ability to, at the right moment, put my ego to one side and realize I'm a, I'm a beginner here, I'm a learner here, I'm the student, this is the teacher. And yeah, cool. I've had some success. Yeah, I'm probably good at a few things, but for now I need to learn what he's doing, what she's doing, like and, and really take on those lessons as much as possible. So I think those influences were massive. And then just the, you know, you could have spend all that time around those people and not take it in. I think the ability to then take it in and really try and internalize it and then put it into practice consistently.

Well, I mean it's, it's paid off clearly. I understand you've won a few recent awards that are pretty, you know, incredible as far as I'm concerned. You put yourself out there, you're starting your own little company as well around what you've learned and sucked in from, you know, being a great student and being extremely observant, willing to put yourself out there. Like talk about that a little bit. Like one, how what is this award and how did you, how does that happen? And two, like where did you get the confidence to go out there and start your own firm to train other people on the things you've learned?

The award. Is that the Wiser UK? Yeah. Yeah. So I was named in the top 100 salespeople by Wiser, which is like a recruitment company. I don't think they're doing it at the moment, but they used to do this thing basically where sales managers would be able to submit their reps performance on a biannual basis. So they did it biannually and then they would do it at the end of the year as well. So basically it was just people would, it was like self submitted but it was obviously validated through people's managers. So there was still this element of like, were people fudging the numbers a bit? I Think probably some people were. In my case I wasn't. But you know, I don't know, there were some people with like stupid percentages on there. So that's the only reason I say that. But yeah, it was an aggregated pot of, you know, high performing AES and I managed to rank quite highly in that. But it was, it was 2022 and I just had a really bumpy year. I basically came off the back of my first year as an AE. So I started as an A in January 2021, had 12 months of sort of hit and miss, like, you know, good month, bad month, good month, bad month. As I was learning and as I was making these rookie errors and all these mistakes, so I, you know, I did a lot of reflecting. I used to create a lot of closed loss deal reviews where I'd, you know, at the end of a quarter spend literally like half a day meticulously going through my deals, looking at like the med pick score, how many people were in the deal, like how long did the was the sales cycle, like what was the core frequency, like breaking down the skeleton of the deal. I called it to sort of take the emotion and the bias that I was feeling in the moment on the deal, that kind of attachment. And then I was able to identify trends.

Cool.

Like I'm always missing compelling event. Oh, I was, I mean I'm single, single threaded way too often I need to multi thread more like, you know, identifying these types of trends. And that's what led to me finding a lot of consistency because I was able to sort of find my feet and get more confident with the role, but also cut out all the mistakes in a consistent way. So that's what led to a really bumper year in 2022. And I, yeah, I had a really, really great year. Like each quarter I went like way over and was able to perform really highly when a lot of the people in the team were starting to struggle as the kind of tech industry was sort of taking a wobble. So that's what led to that award and that was great. But at the same time, and this kind of stems into what the second part of your question. I started creating content for my peers because I was seeing success and because I was kind of more established in the team and we were growing and we were hiring. There was more people coming into the AE team who were struggling to kind of like find consistency. So it was just my idea of like, cool, how can I help my company, my team, you know, level up and, and I was very, I Am very passionate about Reach Desk and I was very passionate about helping everyone succeed. So that was just me sort of doing my part and mucking with the team to say like, cool, here's what works for me, let's discuss it and let's debate it. And that's kind of, that was the origin of this side business, was these internal debates. So I set these kind of like hour long sessions up. We did them bi weekly and each week it was just like, cool, let's discuss one topic. And it would be multi threading, it would be negotiating proposals, prospecting, whatever. It might be cold calling, all the different aspects of being in sales. And I was kind of the mediator for the meetings. But it was a very like productive session and kind of everyone contributed. And my thinking was everyone's got great ideas in their heads. All we need to do is just get them out and boil them down and make note of them all. So it was just trying around prod certain people, hey Jack, you were really good in that deal where you did that thing like what, what was it you did there? Or hey Liv, like you had that amazing deal that you closed, like, why was that such a high average order value, whatever. And then we did that for the best part of a year. And so I had so many notes and obviously again we're starting to identify trends around what are the key topics, what are the main things, what are the fundamental things that we're doing that are leading to our success as a collective. And so I had all this content for a long time and I made it into slides and presented it internally and almost like an internal training resource. But then I realized maybe there's, there's value for this content elsewhere. And then what it led to was One of the BDRs left reach desk guy called Alice Ali Green and he moved to Canada and he wanted to get promoted from BDR to ae. So I said, hey, like why don't we run through the 12 fundamentals together? And we did it one to one over a few weeks over Zoom. And he said, yeah, like this is really good. And I'd had lots of really kind of positive feedback from my colleagues at Reach Desk as well. People saying like, oh, this is the most useful thing that I've, you know, that we've been through since we joined the company. And you know, people were saying really nice, like touching, heartfelt things that made me feel very confident about the value that was in the, the ideas. And so I had it all sort of in the, in the back burner. And I had this idea that, yeah, I want to do this thing and maybe I want to launch this as a course. But then I got a new job. So then I kind of put it to one side, focused on getting up to speed at Monday, didn't think about it, didn't touch it for six months, seven months. But after kind of smashing my ramp and then having a really strong kind of quarter on full target, like again, really exceeding the numbers and like I hit my annual number in August, for example. So like I've been able to get up to speed pretty quickly here. So I felt confident that, hey, I can justify it, you know, a few hours a week creating content and putting a website together and maybe doing these in person seminars. So the confidence kind of came from that. But it is a big step, I think, putting yourself out there on LinkedIn. It's a bit of an intimidating arena.

Scary, right? The first time you throw a video up there that you're trying to teach somebody something or explain something or, I mean, it's out. Your whole heart and soul is in that video. And it, yeah, and it's, it's, it's scary.

Yeah. I do agree and I did feel that when I posted my first like video that was kind of like sales training, I did kind of give myself a bit of a pat on the back just to say, like, yeah, that was quite brave actually, Scott. But I've, it's kind of, I've normalized it now and it feels very natural to upload these videos every week, which I do. But I think me and, me and Jimmy, who I know you know very well, Mark, we did some videos together on LinkedIn around the time when you joined Reach Desk. Actually it was Covid had kicked in and we weren't able to do stuff. So we actually put together these video series and we put them on LinkedIn and we did one with Tom Boston, we did one with Vinmitano, both of whom are like extremely successful on LinkedIn as well. So this is like four years ago, four and a half years ago we did these. So I'd already done a bit of a thing where we'd sort of made videos, made some content, put it on LinkedIn and that was the BD best practices, BDR best practices. And that's what my company is now called is BD Best Practices. So that came from then. So I also found a little bit of confidence in, in that, in that we'd already done it and, and that kind of stuff. And when we're in the early days Of Reach Desk, we would post a lot on LinkedIn because that was us trying to make a name for the company. And it was through necessity. Like, we knew it was a bit embarrassing, we knew it was a bit daunting and, you know, there was a risk that it was going to flop and we were going to look stupid, but it was like, we're in a startup, we need this company to grow. This is how we get our name out there. Let's go. And then it was like, you know, the other stuff was less, much less relevant. So I've. Those previous experiences were kind of sat with me and so, and again, through the positive feedback that I'd had from people who I'd shared the training resources with kind of just made me feel like, yeah, this is, this is going to be valuable. And, and in the end, as well, I kind of just decided this is something I want to do. And it's like, you know, once I've decided, yeah, I want to have a business and want to deliver value and I want to, you know, elevate my life ultimately as well, which is a big part of what I'm trying to do is be successful and, you know, buy a nice house and like, fund my family's life, like, for decades to come. It's like, is embarrassment on LinkedIn like a small price to pay compared to that, I would say. So that, that also a bit of, a bit of perspective, I think, in terms of the grand scheme helps as well.

Well, I, you know, I see the content every time you post and it's fantastic. You know, you're doing a really good job with it. So, you know, I'm the, I'll be the voice of the LinkedIn followers and, and, and part of your audience. You're doing a fantastic job. So really, really excited to see it. And I wait for it every week. I'm always curious to see what you're coming up, what your ideas are and what you're coming up with. And, you know, I just think it's fantastic, you know, like how, you know, from when you started this to, like, where you are going, where you are now, kind of with building this company, building your journey, supporting the rest of your career. I mean, it's having impact. Like, people know who you are in a lot of cases on LinkedIn these days.

Yeah, your audience is growing fast. Yeah, yeah, the, the followers has gone up quite a lot. It, it's kind of, it did surprise me how kind of quickly it gained traction. Like, I think especially earlier this year, not many People were making videos on LinkedIn. I think now they've introduced it as like a formal part of the platform and they've emailed content creators and they're encouraging people to make video and people are starting to do it a bit more. But especially, like even six months ago, like, nobody was making any videos. So I think there was kind of like a, an audience. They're ready for that kind of stuff. So I think that helped. But it has definitely taken off, gained like a fair few thousand followers in the last few months, which is, which is crazy. And it did pleasantly surprise me. But, yeah, it's cool. I don't know, it's. It's one of those things people are calling me like an influencer at work and I kind of get teased about, like, oh, he's trying to skip the lunch queue, like, because he's big on LinkedIn kind of thing. I get a lot of teasing like that nowadays and people talking about the day in the life. But again, it's just part of, it's just part of what I'm doing and putting yourself out there and just kind of comes with it. But it's nice. And I get a lot of, like, nice messages from people. Yeah, like every week I'll get, like, at least a handful of messages from people saying, hey, like, I see your content, like, I really think is great. Like, I'm, you know, I've put things into practice. It's helping me in my deals and, and that, that's really motivating because obviously you don't always feel like creating the content and posting the content naturally, like with human beings. So not every day is like, you're super up for it. But then when you get messages like that and you realize like, oh, this is like actually helping people and, you know, and I put myself in the shoes of myself, like five years ago. That's a lot of what I think about with this content is like, what would I have wanted and benefited from when I was trying to achieve these things for the first time? So, yeah, that help. It does help keeping you going and, and having some success. And dopamine. The dopamine, when you put a video up and it starts getting hundreds of likes, you like, it kind of gets a little bit in addicting sometimes as well. So it's a bit of a balance because you don't want to just be, I don't know, too locked in with the, the social content and the. Yeah, again, that sort of, like, positive thought, like reinforcement, because it's not necessarily the right thing to focus on, but it's a good motivator and, and some of it is, is very heartfelt which, which is, which is powerful.

So I think what's also cool, I mean, I'm sure, I don't know if you get this feedback but like if I was your customer or your target prospect at Monday, right. If I go to your LinkedIn profile, I see the authentic you. Right. I don't see you just trying to pitch me more on Monday. I see the authentic you and, and, and that personalization. I think it matters today. I think like, you know, showing the world you're a human matters because, and you're passionate about different topics matters and you know, so I, I, I think you're benefiting, I hope you're benefiting from that on, on, on, on the day side part of your job.

Yeah, I'm not sure because I don't hear many prospects or customers like talking about it. I think I've had like one or two comments where people have said like, oh, I saw your videos, stuff like that. I, I was, because I, because it gets so much traction with sales people. I don't know, I think it maybe kind of skews the perspective a little bit because I think the main audience is salespeople. When, when you look at the analytics and my content, like it's always BDRs, account executives, account managers, founders. Those are the people it really resonates with. Whereas at Monday, because we sell to so many different Personas, it's operations, it's, it, it's projects, it's creative agencies and sales. I'm selling the CRM, so there is an element of the salespeople. But I think everyone's LinkedIn feeds are much more personalized than they realize. I think everyone's interaction with the Internet in general is much more tailored to them than they realize. So I'm not sure how much my content actually gets pushed to like the directors of operations who I've gotten up with, for example. But at the same time I think you're right. Like they're still going to see my profile. They're still going to probably see at least one or two posts. And if nothing else, it shows that you like taking the job seriously and that you're passionate about it, which hopefully counts for something. But yeah, I think in terms of prospecting, that's probably a good one as well. I've always found that like staying top of mind with prospects is obviously a difficult thing and like bubbling, you know, oh, just checking in, bubbling this up to top of your inbox. Like that's obviously so frowned upon and almost laughed at in sales. But if you're creating content regularly, you're kind of doing the same thing. Like you're going back to the top of mind. You're at least your name's popping up and the company names popping up, which kind of makes them think, oh yeah, what was that thing that Scott said about or whatever. So that's another thing. I think it helps you avoid getting like ghosted or just completely falling off people's radars. So yeah, I think there's definitely some, some day to day benefits as well.

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, you know, I want to ask just a couple questions that you know, kind of, you know, maybe you know, dive into a little bit about your, you know, your, your opinions on certain things. I think the first one, like I want to know if you think selling's getting harder.

Right.

You started this six years ago. What's your opinion on sales in general? Is it, is it tougher than it was a few years ago?

That is a really good question. I don't think there's like a simple answer to it. I think you could argue for both yes and no, to be honest. I think prospecting, I think it's fair to say is probably harder. Yeah, Automation, like, you know, when I started at BDR 2018, not, not everybody had sales loft or outreach like that was, that was still a tool that was sort of like in its growth phase. Like it been adopted by early adopters. It was kind of going through that bulk adoption phase in the market. So there was still a large amount of people who weren't even automating emails, for example. So that obviously meant that the inboxes were, were not so noisy. That said, people still said back then, oh, inboxes are noisy. So I don't know, it's hard to judge. But yeah, I used to use video a lot in the early days of Reach Desk as well, like Loom or Vidyard and those used to get amazing traction. And again I think we adopted that quite early. Like I was doing that from sort of like January 2020. And a lot of people didn't start adopting video in their outbound until a lot, you know, at least a year or two after that there was a couple of companies that were doing it. Like Salesloft used to do it quite a lot with whiteboards and stuff like that. But you know, so if you did stuff like that and you, you know, when voice notes came out and then you Jumped on that quite early. I think that helped. But now obviously these kind of new attractions are kind of just like the novelties wearing off and they're being widely adopted and, and that kind of stuff. And yeah, I think typically when we were going outbound for cold prospecting with Reach desk, like I would average like a 15 reply rate to cold contacts, which you know, was pretty good I think in terms of the team performance. But most people were getting like 5 to 10%. Whereas now like outbound cadences are almost always single digits unless it's like super targeted. You know, if it's a cadence with a big sample size, you know, some companies still be getting 1 or 2% reply rate. So I think on that side of things, building pipeline, yes, but then you could argue like, you know, has AI and have all these other tools that started to empower people potentially given different ways of being more targeted or finding new prospects in different ways or being more efficient with our time, there's maybe like a counterbalance in that sense. In terms of closing, I'm not sure I've been in AE long enough to see too much of a trend of like change like January 2021 through to now. I think it's similar. But I think yeah, prospecting is probably the one where it's like most obvious. I don't know.

Yeah, sure. You know, like you were saying, there's an arms race with different tools for all different aspects of what we do and what you have to do as an AE and as a sales professional. What, what are some of the tools you've discovered recently that have made an impact and, and you don't have to say force equals. Outside of force equals. What are the things that like you think are making an impact in your, in, in your world?

I don't know. I think I'm more of like old school seller. I don't think I've adopted many like new tools recently. Like, you know, a lot of people are talking about AI. I don't think I'm very good at using AI at the moment. Like I use it a little bit here and there, but there's probably much more effective ways of using it and making things scalable. I think that's something I see a lot of content about on LinkedIn. I think probably one that comes to mind is like auto dialers which have started to become a lot more popular now. I tried one, we've been trialing one recently and I had a little go at it. We haven't actually launched with one just yet, but I think the volume of connects that you can get with an auto dialer is insane. You know, if you think back to cold calling days that I was referring to, you know, 10 connection rate, maybe you know, 20 to 30 conversion rate from a cold call off that. So you're having to make I don't know what, $30 to make one booking on average. It's, and that was like a good day. Whereas now like you can have connect after connect after connect. And you know, I've seen a lot of people for BDR content talking about booking, you know, five, 10 meetings a day, you know, whether they're qualified and how like how high quality the, the ops are is a different debate. But I think that's probably one thing I've seen a lot of people talking about and I've had a little trial with it and it is kind of crazy. You just, you plug in a number and like 10 seconds later you're speaking to somebody who's like within your icp. But other than that, I'm more old school. Like I like to use Sales Navigator, which I still think is an underrated tool. It's so powerful for segmenting and filtering through an ICP at an account level, an individual level, identifying triggers that you can like react to, you know, using it for referrals of people connected with. Like that for me is, is still my go to tool for mapping accounts. For prospecting. Yeah, for like finding things I can respond to and triggers that I can then prospect off the back of. Other than that, I just like to take loads of notes and like, and get on the phone as well. Like, you know, if a prospect emails me back, just call them, call them instead of emailing them. I think those are ultimately just the most powerful ways to connect with people. So yeah, maybe I'm not like super futuristic with my approach and maybe that will lead to me getting caught behind as, as things evolve, which they seem like they are quite a lot, but.

Yeah. How much time do you put into making sure you're on the, you know, at least on, you know, you might not be on the, the front of the wave, but make sure that you're on the wave of new innovation. Like how much time do you put into like looking what's out there, seeing what your peers have, what's new? Like how do, how do you kind of keep abreast of that?

That's definitely something I'm conscious of because when you see generations in front of you, you see people who don't adopt certain technologies and you realize like the negative impact it can have on people's lives. Obviously if you think in like our grandparents generation, like I don't know them struggling to use like an iPhone or an iPad, like they don't care about that stuff but like, you know, they could unlock lots of different stuff if they could. And that's just like an extreme example. But I think, I think like that in, in terms of like on the micro level as well with sales, with trends, like with video, like with voice notes, like if you can be an early adopter or something like that, it can be very powerful and you can end up with outsized results for like the efforts you put in. But I wouldn't say I spend loads of time proactively exploring those ideas just because like sales is such a time intensive, time intensive role I would say primarily. But LinkedIn is a great place for that. I've always found LinkedIn is a great resource for best practices in education. You know, again, ever since the early days of like being at Reach desk, I used to learn so much from people like Josh Braun and Morgan, Morgan Ingram, like Vin Matano, Brian Lamana, like Charlotte Johnson, like all these people post gold like all the time. And a lot of the time they're talking about tools that they're using or ways that they're using a tool that might be unique and stuff like that. So those are probably my primary ways of trying to find content. And that's often, that's also why I like create a lot of content because I know that I gained a lot of value from posting on there. So I'd say that. But I don't know if there are other, if there are other places you can learn about this stuff, then I'm all ears.

Yeah, I mean on my founder's journey it's an, it's a, it's an education process for certain. You know, I learn about new stuff all the time because I'm trying to edit a video in a new way or YouTube library of how to's is just still a massive resource that I would not survive without for sure. So. Well, let's, let's, let's go into a couple things like a few lessons, right? I'd love to get like, you know, some things that you think are like super important that you've learned that you're hyper passionate to share. I, I'd like to go into that a little bit just like what you think you've learned on this journey that somebody else needs to know about.

So like when I was delivering the in Person seminars recently which covers the 12 fundamentals. It's a four part seminar, four week seminar. We cover three fundamentals each week. One of the common themes that I kind of only noticed when I was delivering it in person because I just found myself continually saying it was like best in class sales experience. And, and that's why I think a lot of what sales boils down to, if you're to really simplify it is, is to be the best version of yourself. Be consistent in your outputs and, and what you're doing on a day to day basis. Well, be consistent with your inputs into the role and what you're delivering on a day to day basis and deliver a best in class sales experience for the prospects. That's ultimately, I think a lot of it boils down to my opinion is whether you're talking about discovery call or a follow up email or a proposal you're putting together or negotiation that you're doing or whatever it might be creating it in a way that's like tailored to the individual. That's factoring in the things that are most important to them, that's empathetic towards the. What they're experiencing, the challenges they're facing, the impact of those, what they're trying to achieve and doing it in like a, in a meaningful way and in a, like in an intentional way and just doing that consistently and then just trusting the process and trusting the rest to fall into place. That for me is, is probably like the most important thing. So just. Yeah. Delivering that best, best in class sales experience.

I think like setting that bar high to begin with for yourself.

Exactly. And, and a lot of like I've seen statistics on like competitive deals. For example, I can't remember it was maybe Gong said about how the most important factor in a competitive deals is the, the experience that the salesperson provides. So often you know, those actions that you take and you know the care that you put into every single element of an opportunity, in every single interaction with a, with a prospect matters more than actually even your offering or the features or the functions or the product roadmap or whatever it might be or the price. So yeah, I think that's something I really, really keep in mind. And it's just, it's kind of so deeply rooted and ingrained in me now. Yeah. And I think just putting that thought and that care into every single, every single action and everything, every single interaction with a, with a prospect that that for me is what it ultimately boils down to.

That's great, great advice. You know, I Think certainly makes a difference when salespeople are making sure they're really tuning in and holding themselves hyper accountable to just being great. It makes the difference between somebody that I'm going to spend more time on the phone with when, when they're trying to sell to me versus somebody that I'm trying really hard to get off the phone. And, and it really sets the pace and the momentum for everything else that happens because the sales cycle is long. Right. And if I've got high confidence that somebody's going to be setting the bar high for how they interact with me and the value they deliver to me certainly matters, you know, just as somebody that gets, you know, I talk to a lot of salespeople over time and yeah, it really matters. I, I don't know if I've always been as a sales leader. You know, I've always wanted people to set the bar really high for themselves as individuals. I'm not always certain I did a great job of, you know, enforcing it. Right. I kind of think that this is something that you got to bring to the table yourself a bit. And if you do, you're going to be phenomenal. And if you don't, you're going to be mediocre. Like, do you think folks should. I mean, you can't wait for your boss to tell you to get better, right?

No, I think, yeah, it definitely comes from the individual. Like one of the. Sometimes people ask me about, oh, you know, how do you stay consistent? How do you continually sort of like over perform? And for me it's really important to have strong internal reasons why. A really strong why. Like, you know, Simon Sinek. Start with why. I really like, like that idea of whenever you're doing anything, opening a presentation or thinking about your career or your, you know, you know, whatever it might be, start with why. And in the context of this question, it's like, why do I want to be great at sales? Why do I want to be successful in my job and thinking and reflecting and, and it, and it can be quite deep. It can be about your life, it can be what you want from yourself. It can be about your own, like, perception of yourself as a person. You know, again, just taking it back to like when I was starting out as a bdr, it was about trying to get my promotion to being senior BDR and then to being ae. But I used to write loads of reasons around why I wanted that. Like, I want to meet someone in the future who, you know, I was such a, I was a, you know, a great person that they would want to marry me, like that kind of stuff, you know, or, and obviously it can be financial, it can be like career orientated in terms of I want this role or whatever it might be, but those are important things. And obviously then on a day to day basis like, and I think when, like having those things in mind for me helps me be consistent with my outputs because then when you feel tired or when you feel less motivated or when in sales the going gets tough and you're behind target and you're having to try and dig deep to try and find that motivation, when those things, you've thought about them and internalize them and process them and you know, agreed with yourself that those are the priorities again, then the context of, you know, putting yourself out there or digging deep or making 10 extra calls or whatever it might be is kind of irrelevant in the context of that. So that's, that's one thing I think, but I think it's a very personal thing and I'm not sure it's something a manager can necessarily like, you can't force it on people. It's just, I get, I'm not a manager, but it probably is about finding what makes each person tick naturally. But think going through that kind of purposeful and intentional process of thinking about like, why do I actually want to be good at this, why do I want to be successful in my role? That, that's something I think has had a big impact on me and consistently sort of, yeah, put myself out there and, and then that just leads the results. You know, you control what's in your control and, and you trust the rest to happen.

Well, that's great, thanks for that advice. I, I, this was a fantastic conversation today, in my opinion. I really, really appreciate you participating. Folks that listen to this, they're going to find you. Like, how do folks find you? Right now.

LinkedIn's probably your best bet. Scott Findon F I N D E N the side business I Run is BD Best Practices, which you can find at BD BestPractices.com or on LinkedIn. So yeah, but hit me up on there, drop me a message, drop me a note to let me know you listened and I'd be happy to connect and chat about sales or talk about anything.

So yeah, yeah, well, we all benefit from it. You know, I've known you for, you know, about six years. Five, six years. I'm super impressed with the journey you've been on. I am so excited to, you know, fall, continue to follow you and see where you go over the next. I think the sky's the limit with you. You got a phenomenal attitude. You're, you're, you're a student to life and I think you, you hold the bar really high for yourself. And you know, I, I, I'm really excited to see where this goes. You know, I, one day I, I may be have the, the pleasure of working for you where, when you build something one day. So yeah, thank, thank you. And I'm really excited that you participated today. I know my audience, the audience here at Force equals. It's going to really love this content. It's just, you know, hearing from real authentic people matters and we're trying to share that. So for the folks on my side, you know, this content's going to be, you know, all around the brand for sequels. AI and we'd love you to come check us out and see what we can do to help sales folks get more warm introductions into their target accounts. So thanks, Scott.

Thanks for having me. I appreciate the kind words. But yeah, it's been great speaking with you, great reconnecting and yeah, I'm excited to see what the future holds as well. But yeah, great to chat and yeah, I really appreciate you having me.