Virtual Selling: Trends & Insights

Dheeraj Prasad: Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening to all my viewers on B2B sales insights at nytro.ai. This is your host, Dheeraj Prasad. And I have a very special guest today and he is David green, who is the vice president of growth at Teleperformance. So David, welcome to my show. And really great to have you today.

J. David Green Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. So, David, I've been really intrigued by some of the thoughts that you've been sharing in your posts on LinkedIn. And what really caught my eye was what you talked about in terms of B2B sales transformation. And the way that sales as it has been in the last three to five years is not going to be the same. You know, going forward, you know, the next 100 years. And, you know, this was a statement that I believe from one of the execs at, at Microsoft, so talk more about in terms of, you know, how sales transformation is viewed in your mind going forward?

J. David Green Sure, that's great, quick question. Yeah, the executive was Chris Webber at Microsoft. And I saw a podcast that is really about a year ago. And I thought it was profoundly insightful. And I've actually referenced it several different times and posts, because I thought it was so spot on. I think, you know, there are some technologies that are out in the market today that I think are really going to be transformative. And I think transformation is really driven by technology, mean period. Yeah, somebody can come up with a slightly different way to ask a question or messaging and things like that. But it's technology that really changes the scope of what's possible. So I'll use an example of one of the technologies that I think is very transformational, and that's gone, right? This idea that we can record a live conversation like this, and the technology can look into that and give me guidance, right? This is what else you should ask in the selling process. Or this might be something you want to share, you know, some case study, for example, if you merge that kind of technology, which can, you know, if you do this at scale, let's imagine you have 100, salespeople, you know, probably 10, or 20 of them are doing really well, then you have a big bunch in the middle that are just like, okay, and then other people that are new or struggling and on the way out. Why not look at what these top 20 people do? And maybe especially the top five, or 10%, what do they do? What's different about their approach. And now you have a much more practical way of documenting what that is. And so like some of the research from Gong shows that what they call a multi threaded conversation, for example, correlates to closing deals, right? So if I'm talking, and I have a six figure deal, and I'm talking to three or four people as opposed to one, chances are, it's going to go up if those people are communicating with me, versus I'm sending a communications to them. That's another correlation. So I think it's going to turn a light on to what historically has been a little bit dark, right? Yeah, I have what the sales rep told me, I have maybe some half-baked notes in Salesforce, right? But I don't really know I don't know if this deals gonna close if I'm the sales leader, until I really get a keen sense of an individual rep and what their tendencies are forhaving what I call happy years, or for sandbagging, right, the best guy often sandbag, and they don't tell you it's coming in until you know it's done. So, you know, now you finally have that I saw another technology the other day. I believe it's called Introhive. And what it does is it harvests all the interactions that anyone in the company is having with customers or prospects. And then based upon how many emails they receive, and how many meetings they have with those individuals, it starts to build a score, both at the account level and individual level, and it tracks all that stuff. So if I'm having a meeting with you, and then I found out two of my colleagues are going to have a meeting with you, or they had a you know, an email exchange with you Just the other day. I can. I can prep for this meeting and a little bit more effective way because otherwise how would I ever know? Right? So I think those kinds of things are absolutely transformative and I think the technology that you folks have the potential, the challenge that lots of people have is, how do I practice? Right? How do I practice my skills in a way that say, and so technologies that can facilitate practice. And I do think that, you know, it's like anything, you know, if you shoot free throws all day, you're probably gonna be a good free-throw shooter. If you kick a soccer ball through a goalpost all day, you're gonna probably be good at that it doesn't really matter. Whether it's a physical activity or a mental activity, if you do it a lot, you get better at it. So there is a best way to open a meeting, right? There's a best way to conclude a meeting, there's a right time to ask certain qualifying questions, right? If I just met you, it probably isn't appropriate for me to ask what kind of budget you have, because you don't even know if you want to buy anything from me. So how do I do that? And how do I practice it? I can read about it but not really internalize it. I’ve got to do it. And if I have to do it just with customers, then you know, that leads to a certain amount of failure and aggravation for the customer. So I think all of these things are the things that are transformational. And it's always been up to sales leaders to see what the potential of that technology is and to begin to think about how to apply that technology for their team to get an edge.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely, and I think the kind of technologies that you spoke about is absolutely spot on. And just underscoring what you mentioned about Gong, and I'll definitely look up Introhive as well. What we do at Nytro is absolutely what you mentioned. Because of the fact that the world has now moved to virtual selling, most of the people on the field sales side have been more used to the face-to-face kind of framework of connecting with customers. Now it's a completely different paradigm, right, so you have a shorter time window to impress a customer with the right set of words, which is industry-specific. Stay away from the buzzwords go straight to the value proposition. Practice, say just exactly how, you know, an athlete would do this in the gym, or, you know, in the net of the real, you know, live play, and then build that confidence and then play it out with the customer in the live format. So absolutely. On my follow-up question to you, David is primarily related to the mindset on virtual selling. Now that's a fundamental shift, that field sales needs to make anything specific related to how you feel some of the things that leaders can really do to build that mindset amongst leaders to make that, you know, switch to a virtual method, because given the fact that buyers are not looking at face to face interaction, and one of the studies that came out, I think Bain and company said that 92% of buyers, B2B buyers, don't look at a face to face interaction with sellers anymore.

J. David Green Yeah, I saw that research to it. It's interesting how often people are now saying they would actually prefer not to have a face-to-face meeting and you know, you can understand that from the, put yourself in the buyer’s spot, right? I may not want to have you in my office for an hour. And it's hard for me to get you out of there once you show up physically. Whereas if you were on the phone, you know I can terminate that meeting a little bit easier, without the awkwardness that would happen in a face-to-face. But to answer your question, I think the thing that people have to understand is that human beings are incredibly adaptable. And once you get used to being face to face, right, you pick up on all those visual clues of the person's body language and other things that help you communicate. But if you don't have those anymore, you've got to sharpen the skills that you do have. So if you get really good on the phone, I can tell within a few seconds. The mood that somebody is in when they answer a phone, right? They're harried, they're happy, they're relaxed, you can tell that from their tone if you tune into it, and we can see each other still, right. So it's not impossible that you don't see that. But I think instead of looking at all the things you don't have with virtual selling, start to think about the things that you do. I can have all kinds of reference material. I have three, four other computer screens in front of me right now. So I can have the person's LinkedIn profile, I can have some questions that I want to ask, you know, I can have the company's website up all of those things. And it makes me seem like I'm really smart when I'm just glancing at some information that I've already pulled up, right? You can't do that very readily in a face-to-face meeting. I also think this idea that you get to have the call recorded transcription of it. I'm pretty good at taking notes. But I know when I take a note, I'm not giving you my undivided attention. And I think active listening is very heart and soul of great selling. And now I don't have to put all the strain on writing down what you said because it's going to be transcribed. And I can just go back after the meeting and summarize the key points, which may very well be highlighted for me anyway. So you know, I think there's a lot of advantages to virtual selling. The same executive Chris Webber said that he felt in a short period of time, field salespeople are going to be at a disadvantage to virtual salespeople. And I think that's already true for the really advanced organizations. I think the salespeople who really master virtual selling have an advantage over the people that don't. And I would also say, you know, traditionally, what kind of reps go into an inside role? Well, it's usually someone who's kind of beginning in their career, but there's no law that says, you know, you can't put a more senior person on the phone, you know, with 20 years of industry experience, they're just going to have a better performance if that happens. And there's no law that says you can't close a 100k deal over the phone or an 8k deal over the phone. I think all those things are just mental barriers. It's like the guy that first ran the four-minute mile, right? As soon as he did, a whole bunch of other people did it because they knew it was possible. So I just think we have to give ourselves permission to try what we think is impossible and give ourselves that window to have success.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely and I think one of the key drivers of change is also going to be the way that companies are now looking at moving to a more of a coaching paradigm than something which is, be more classroom or even e-learning based, right? This is really too much of content overload because it does not personalize to my need. Now, this is something that is more in the real context in the experiential format of selling. How do you think coaching as a focus area for leaders is going to be important as a part of this whole transformation journey for B2B sales.

J. David Green You know, if you're a frontline sales leader, that's probably the single most important thing that you do is coach. And, you know, I remember when I first tried to coach people, I made the classic mistake that I think a lot of frontline sales leaders make, where I knew books worth of information more than the person that I was coaching, and I tried to get that all to them immediately. And that's too much, right? Very few people can, you know, have some sort of encyclopedic knowledge to absorb information and apply it. So you really need to pick out something that they're not doing well get them to practice it, right. So let's say it's in a new sales rep. Very common with new sales reps that at the end of the call, they forget to set up the next step. Right, it's not really complicated or anything, but you just have to remember to do that. So just get him to do that one little thing at the end of your call, set up the next step. And once they get that, then you go Okay, now at the beginning of your sales call, talk through the agenda, make sure that that's what they're hoping to accomplish in the call to you and be a little bit collaborative. Right and so you just break it down into these little bite-sized bits of wisdom that helps them be a little bit better with their next call and practice a little bit and I think the practice part is really key, you know, I'm a big believer I used to have a boss that said, you have to have the will the drill and the and the skill and the drill is the practice. So you know, anybody can read a book on selling and it can be a fantastic book. But, until you internalize it and start to apply it to your job, it's not going to do anything for you. And that just takes practice.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely, extremely well said in terms of the will, and the drill and drill is the practice. Very well put, David. My last final question for the talk show today is How do you envision the sales rep in 2025? How would he or she look like? And what would the profession transform to? What's your vision of that?

J. David Green Well, I would say that, you know, I think there's a huge opportunity for women in sales. And there are obviously very successful women in tech. You see that it's not uncommon, but it's also not uncommon to see a boys club. And I think if you're a sales leader, you're leaving out a lot of people that could be successful. And, you know, I wouldn't just make it about men and women, I think there's a lot of benefit to getting a variety of people to get the different perspectives on things and bringing different points of view. But I would say that the sales rep and I'm going to talk about technology sales reps because I know that a little better than some of the other things, some of the things that have always been true are going to be more important than ever, and, you know, so for example, usually technology sales reps better are active, lifelong learners, because there's no end to that, just because you got to college doesn't give you a timeout, you get to go watch Netflix all the time, you're going to have to be a lifelong learner, you're always going to have to learn how to listen. Listening is hard, you know, it's hard to listen to someone for very long. And so learning to really listen and really tune into people isn't going to change learning, you know, learning itself is not going to change, it's going to be a requirement. But I would say that reps are going to have to really figure out the handful of technologies that can help them move the needle, right? And there are lots of technologies and so you, you can't do them all. So you better figure out the few that really are going to help you do what you do. And you know, about 10 years ago, a friend of mine went from being a VP of marketing to a consultant, he made a million bucks, I said, How in the world, you do that. And what he did is he went out and read every single sales book he could get his hands on, and then he synthesized them into a methodology that he did. And I thought, Wow, we can all do that, right? We can all learn. We can all get coaching. There’s always a little bit better way to do what we do. And we just have to open ourselves to that. And whether you're starting out in sales, or you've been at it for 20 years, there's no reason you can't be a little bit better tomorrow.

Dheeraj Prasad: Absolutely. David, this is a really good, extremely profound insight. Thank you so much for being on the show. And we would love to have you back sometime soon. And, you know, learn from some of the things that you're doing and the way that you sort of put up the whole future of sales and the B2B framework of selling. So if there is something that our audience wants to reach out to you, what's the best way to reach out to you, David?

J. David Green Probably. I'm on LinkedIn, J. David Green, one is my LinkedIn handle. Or I have a consulting email address jdavidgreen@pipealign.com, pipe and align like sales and marketing alignment. Either one of those is fine.

Dheeraj Prasad: Excellent. Thank you so much, David, once again, and I look forward to catching up again with you soon.

J. David Green Alright, thanks so much. Thanks for having me.