The Life-Long Customer

“Yeah I think, sometimes it's just mutual respect. I hope everyone listening is turning their cameras on when they're selling now. But for those of you who aren't, this was eight years ago when GoToMeeting first launched. I can't remember what they called it.

HD Video, I think, or HD Faces they called it. We were in a beta class of HD Faces. I forced one of my sales teams to use it on every single call. All of the prospects thought it was weird. None of them turn their cameras on, but we just left ours on anyway. And the other sales team didn't turn theirs on.

And we improved close rates, 44% on the team that had their camera on. Again, I guess just to, belabor my point, I think oftentimes we're focused too much on, what we need back to tell us that we're building a lifelong relationship. But really if we're just very purposeful about things we can build a lifelong relationship with somebody just by being human.”

- Brian Deignan, VP of Sales, FastSpring

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“My second deployment to Afghanistan…

I was at a forward operating base. 

So it was quite small and I was there for a couple of months and all of a sudden, all our supplies were cut off to the base. 

So we're eating field rations for weeks.

The only thing brought to us with water by an airplane that would scream overhead at about 200 feet and then dump pallets of water bottles out the back and all of these great big parachutes, but it was so low that not all the parachutes would open.

And then the water, we were talking a pallet like 5,000 pounds of water exploding onto the ground...

- Andrew Weiss, Founder of Battle Brothers Shaving Co

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“There's a 10,000 reps phenomenon.

You have to just go through the steps and the pieces, and there's no shortcut on the sales and marketing side. 

There's a certain number of at-bats or attempts that you have to do. 

Each one is valuable and could be valuable in the future.

It's important to number one, prepare to just take a lot of attempts at working with somebody and reaching out.  

You have to build a big list and really just go at it. Number two is the research part is just as important, like spending time. 

There's so much available information now and digesting it beforehand. 

Everybody only has a finite amount of time these days. We're pushed and pulled in so many different directions. 

Messaging has been minimized to 140 characters, and there are so many short interactions that they have to be meaningful. 

You can eliminate the unmeaningful ones through research and be prepared to have good questions ahead of time in those many at-bats that you have to take.”

- Bob Spoljaric, COO & Partner, Method3

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“I think it starts with how you build relationships with people. Because at the end of the day, yes, XYZ corporation is my customer, but it's really the VP of operations that's my customer, or the president of a division or something like that. And something I found really helpful is: ask a lot of questions.

I actually play a game when I go on customer calls with my salespeople or when I used to go with them for myself, I would try to talk as little as possible. And so I would ask really big, broad, wide open-ended or investigative questions. And you see how much can I get them going. My record is 11 minutes, so I asked one question and I got somebody to talk for 11 minutes straight.

The awesome part was he got all of that stuff off of his chest and he told me about the challenges that were going on in his business. And for me, I got to learn all about that in his business and it was then really easy to formulate a solution because he gave me all the ammunition I need.

I'm like, okay, I got this and this. All right. We put these two pieces together. Here we go. Here's how I can help you. I think that's the start: just listening to other people.”

- Eric Herrera, VP of Sales, Kolbe

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“Again, we're going into, let's say for me, I'm local to Tampa, right? So again, if I'm in the financial solutions group, I walk into the city of Tampa. Hi, I'm here to help you do your indirect cost rates analysis. I'm here to help you look at additional fees that you guys may capitalize on.

And I don't just come in and walk out, do an analysis- and leave.

These cost allocation plans and things like that happen very regularly, depending on the client, on a regular cadence. So I'm there, I'm responsive. They get to know me, they trust me, they trust my work and it's also about performance.

So if I'm able to find even an additional bucket of a hundred thousand dollars that they didn't have prior it's a win, right? So I think it's twofold. It's being there, it's functioning seamlessly as an extension of a team and it's performing when you're asked to perform.”

- Tiffanie Reynolds, VP of Marketing, MGT Consulting Group

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“So it sounds like a lot of growth. And with that, I'm sure comes some challenge. What has been your greatest challenge this past year as you guys are growing so much? 

Yeah, surely different challenges and they are connected with some obstacles that appeared. We were all sitting at home on lockdown and first of all, it's a managerial challenge. 

So it's twice more difficult to motivate people to stay as active as they are when you are sitting not in the office when you do not have such a personal touch.

When you cannot just talk to them in the kitchen and to see what the person is really thinking of and to feel the person, yeah? But then we adapted to that. We found some tools that we gathered sometimes at home, we  found some offices that were working and providing a space for one or two meetings per month, so we kept that.”

- Maxim Sidorenko, Head of Sales, Ein-Des-Ein

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“It sounds like they use your product every day and it's an integral part of their business. How do you go about fostering those relationships?

Good question. I thrive off of relationships. It's actually what I do. I love people. So relationships are key and on top of that, I'm pretty competitive

And I think you need a little bit of both to be at the top of your game from a sales perspective.

Relationships give you an opportunity to earn that prize role of being a trusted advisor and to be looked at as potentially a confidant and having an opportunity to lead your clients in the right direction is amazing.

Being in a position to help clients determine a problem, find solutions, and have a role in helping them reach their goals is incredible. All while being present for the longevity of the partnership I don't ever go away. And having that goal in creating long-term relationships is what I carry through my career.”

- Alycia Anderson, VP of Sales, Knock

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“If you can understand your customer journey, then you can understand how to sell to them. And so understanding that our customers and clients, we deal with an array of different titles or different people.

So our automation group might work with a plant manager. Who's in the building, working with the machines that need to work together. Whereas our outdoor utilities group might work with the building or facilities manager. It's the same company, but we might be working with two different clients.

So my goal in my position is to understand that this client's journey may look different than this client's journey. By understanding that we still are in a relationship with the same customer, those two individuals at that client may have different journeys.

By understanding that we can then build upon our relationships by adding an understanding that, "Hey, I work with Joe over here and I work with Bob over here. Let's have a meeting with both of them to understand that we do more than just what Joe and Bob are working on." That will allow us to facilitate long-term relationships.

They trust us enough that we are their employees almost. We're this close with them. Understanding that client journey is not just.. .It's someone who needs a new building. That's the client journey. There's a lot more to understanding the sales and marketing side of what our clients are looking for.”

- Garrett Veurink, Marketing & Sales Manager, Buist Electric

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“When we make a phone call or we talk to a customer, we need to forget about the end. We can't have some agenda of “I'm talking to this person because I need X, Y, Z at the end of this call”, we have to be able to communicate with them and have a real conversation just as if they're sitting right next to us on the couch. Or as if we're standing next to them in the elevator. In some of the books that I've read, some of the people call this commission breath, we can't have commission breath. We can't have whatever you want to call it.

That person that we're talking to is just Brad is just like Bart.

It's just a regular person just like us. And we need to treat them that way. And we feel that goes a long way to establishing relationships. We actually care about you and we want to hear about your dog and your pets. And I want to hear where you're from and we feel that gets us more joy in our job and helps our customers want to be with us for longer.”

- Bart Liechty, Chief Sales Officer, Kadince

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“There's a standard distribution of companies, and the goal of any long-term startup strategy is to migrate towards a world where you're selling into the middle of that standard distribution - because that's where the most companies are.

That's where the largest budgets are. That's where the most money is. 

But ultimately early on, you're working with a lot of brave clients.  

It's like the Oregon Trail video game.

Your early clients are the most critical in terms of providing feedback on your product that is useful as you continue to build it, it's like the minimum viable product strategy. 

They're also going to be a great source of lead referral as you continue to grow. They will be great reference clients.

As you sign your 10th or 20th client, they're going to want to talk to references. 

So they comprise that, really early stage of very brave clients that are willing to work with you and your product and by your vision, even if your product isn't fully formed yet.

So they're helping you take your product and bring it to the mass market. Along the way, there are different phases that you go through on your way to reaching the middle of the standard distribution curve.

Those are really the most critical relationships that you build and maintain. 

Ultimately, as you think about the long-term health of your business it really is going from that point where you have early-stage clients that are really bought in on the vision and are willing to accept the challenges inherent in your product to a world where you can become, more focused on the mass market.”

- Dylan Flye, VP of Sales, Simon Data

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