Closing Deals in a Pandemic Environment

Jessica Ly: I'm here with Chad Weber, who is the VP of sales in the western region for ASG. Hi, Chad. How are you?

Chad Weber: Jessica? I'm doing well. How are you today?

Jessica Ly: I'm fine, thank you. We are now in a challenging environment where you must face it, especially you in sales. And I know that salespeople love to meet in person, you know, for lunch for happy hour and that rapport in person is so critical. But we are now in a lockdown quarantine phase. So how are you able to carry on doing your enterprise sales in this environment?

Chad Weber: Yeah, thank you for the question, Jessica. Absolutely relevant. As we have this discussion today, to be honest with you, I would say that our organization and sales team is truly kind of thinking through and trying to better understanding, understand rather what the new normal looks like for obviously, the quarantine the lockdown you in California might be a little elevated or escalated from where we are in Arizona today. But we're about to catch up with you is the honest truth in my estimation. So a lot of things to think through. But the first thing we're thinking through, as it pertains to your question, and to specifically answer that is, how do we get face time with our customers, as he said, the happy hours, the industry events were the first things to go right. And even going to the customer site, or having the customer come to your site, those days, at least for the time being, are absolutely gone. So again, to answer your question, we're leveraging the tools and the technologies that we have in house today for us that happens to be like Microsoft Teams from a video, discussion, presentation type of capability. And we're paying a lot of attention to turning the camera on really getting that face time with the customers over technology, of course, which you know, think the good graces that we're in a position where we have those technologies today because, you know, a decade and a half ago, certainly we didn't in what we have done then. So those are some of the things that we're thinking about. And then, you know, what does reaching out to customers look like? What does, you know? How are we going to replace the interactions of those industry events with things like the broader bigger webinars where we're really pushing the traffic there and thinking about, you know, as well how our technology at ASG would provide value to the marketplace in challenging times like we're faced with today with the Coronavirus?

Jessica Ly: Yes. I mean, I feel like clients or prospects are delaying and spending money because of the uncertainty in the environment. So then delaying any procurement. They're working from home with kids, and so they're not working at 100% capacity like before. And so I think that the do you feel? Maybe hitting quota is definitely less likely, and that the effort to actually close deals is going to require a lot more work for maybe less revenue.

Chad Weber: Yeah, I can tell you right now, as you mentioned to the audience, as in the VP of the West region for ASG, which means a lot of California customers. I won't, of course, say any specific names, but we have customers in the health care sector in California that we've already seen impacted Q1 revenue, you know, working on closing, you know, renewal contracts, new opportunities all across the board, both up and down the stack, renewals, new opportunities, etc., that they've proactively told us all resource in our organization, are focused on handling this outbreak period, we are requesting that our vendors work with us.

Jessica Ly: Let's talk about your technology. I know you work with a lot of health care providers and financial institutions. Your technology ASG is into providing that trust of the data. And when we're talking about the metadata that allows them to truly see the movement of the original data from one system to the neck where it goes and all that and you're able to reach all the way to the mainframe, which has been around for 30 years. I think what you've done is phenomenal. Why don't you tell us a little bit about the technology and how that helps clients?

Chad Weber: Yeah, absolutely. So the first thing I'd say in answer to your question is that we actually have three separate product lines and we are going to focus today's conversation on ASG’s data intelligence solution. So yeah, you're exactly right. The data intelligence solution ASG brings to the marketplace is a metadata management solution. The thing about ASG that I'd like to highlight in this conversation and you already did, in different words, and I'm going to use is that because we've been in this game and doing metadata management for our customers for over three decades, Jessica, the depth and breadth at that skill set that we believe, makes us the, you know, gorilla in the room are the elephant in the room, the best of the best. And one of those reasons is exactly what you just mentioned. Not you know, when you think about the other solution providers out there in the marketplace, a lot of them do great things. I'm not here to disparage the competition, competition is healthy, all that good stuff, but none of them have been around doing what we've been doing for 30 years. And we're built on them, you know, mainframe system technologies, right? So, you know, first and foremost, that's one of the reasons those financial institutions, those healthcare companies, both of which you mentioned, from an industry perspective, that have been around for more than a decade, come to ASG to meet these needs, when they're thinking about things like, how do I address a compliance matter that might be on my plate, whether it be the new CCPA regulation in California, whether it be GDPR, coming out of the European Union, or any other regulation that would require me to identify that personal information of either my customers, my employees, or even my partners in a partner type of ecosystem, right? So if a piece of information comes in, we were talking earlier, but I'll just use that low-hanging fruit example. If I open an account, a bank account, a savings account, checking whatever it might be, at one of the major financial institutions out there with my email address, pretty common practice out there, I've started accounts in that manner, right? I'm sure you have to. But what we don't think about a lot of times, certainly, you know, back a long time ago, we weren't thinking about this. But when I put that email address into that banking system to start an account, where else does that go right throughout their data infrastructure? My strong suspicion is that it's probably going to the marketing department because they want to, you know, market to me to embrace more of their portfolio than just that checking account, they want the credit card and the investment account and everything else, which is good business, and why they do that. But with regulations that are coming out, and you know, some of them have been around for a while now, they need to very, in a very, with a fine-tooth comb, be able to identify where that information is going. So again, our metadata management capability will give our customers and partners the ability to see that information as it goes throughout their ecosystem, their data ecosystem and their data landscape.

Jessica Ly: Yeah, that's a pretty powerful value you're providing to the healthcare providers and financial institutions. So I think, you know, the next question I would like to ask is, now that you're in this challenging sales environment, I hope customers are focusing on the crisis, you're now working from home, like most of us are working from home, not able to go on-site not having that meeting in person. What is the change in the strategy to actually close deals? And I know that I mean, this expectation has to shift now. But, great technology. How do you get in front of clients to actually talk about it?

Chad Weber: That's a great question. You know, I think in a lot of ways, because this new normal is so new right now, we're still in the process of thinking that through, but I do have some high-level initial opinions on what that looks and feels like, you know, number one, up less FaceTime, a lot more conference calls. If I'm a salesperson, especially a field salesperson, maybe working from a home office, or whatever the case may be. And I don't know if this is your question, but I'm gonna say it anyway. I think that mindset is critically important right now, right? I think, in general, there are two types of mindsets a growth in a fixed mindset. And those individuals with that fixed mindset, just kind of waiting for this virus thing out, waiting to see what happens for a few weeks before they kind of get back into the game. My strong belief is that three, four, five, six months down the road, these people are going to be struggling immensely for any sort of pipeline whatsoever. Recommending to my team is a couple of different things. Number one, increase your skill sets. You're not on the road. You’re not taking flights. You’re not driving an hour or two to go see A customer across town or across the state in what your territory is. Use that time to refine your pitch, refine your process, truly understand the value that our technology bears to market, be creative with. Okay, there's a new world that we're operating within. Do I see any use cases that could be coming down the pipe? Are there any current customers that even though everybody else's business is thinking maybe they're involved in creating masks for health care, something along these lines in the supply chain, there's going to be critically important to the US and the world addressing this virus issue. Right? So these are the types of things that we're thinking about, how do we reach out to those types of customers? How do we ramp up our level of activity? I would say as well. I believe this. It very well could take double the effort in 2020 to make the same or a little bit less money as a salesperson as you did in 2019. Right? So whatever you did in 2019, whatever money you made, think about I'm probably going to have to double the effort right around there. Maybe more than that, you know, to make that same type of money. But here's what I also believe in. Here’s the good news for all the salespeople watching this interview. If you do that, when times are tough, you're gonna create yourself a whole new skill set, a whole new method of operation, a whole new real paradigm for your own business, or is it gonna identify you as that person who was working hard for them, even though you know the revenue might not have been coming in at the same clip from them in 2020, or maybe even 2021? But moving forward, you're going to establish yourself as having credibility as being that go-to person for your customers. So that's the good news.

Jessica Ly: Sounds good. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, Chad, and I know that it is a very challenging time for everyone, especially for sales on the front line, doing the enterprise sales, Field Sales. Appreciate you sharing your thoughts on the situation.

Chad Weber: Absolutely. Jessica. Thank you.