Transcription
Got it all right, awesome y'all!
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to the session today around managing to impact and leadership, right around this idea of how do we actually drive results and change results.
To kick things off here, I mean, super quick intro: my name is Kevin Dorsey, everybody calls me KD unless I get out of line. If I get out of line, call me Kevin, and I know I went too far in some way.
I've been building startup sales teams for the last 10 years. I have a couple unicorns under the belt now with ServiceTitan and with Tebra after the merger. I am the builder; I like to go in and build and take a team from five people, ten people to a hundred plus people in a very short period of time. A lot of that revolves around processes and systems and getting into the nitty-gritty of things.
So, I'm really excited to share with you all today the frameworks that we teach here at Winning by Design, but also to be able to speak to them personally—like how to actually use it in the real world.
To kick this off, I do have two asks that I always open up my sessions with. Those of you that have done sessions with me know what's about to come; those that have not will be the first time you're hearing it.
But I have two asks to kick off this session, right? I used to call these ground rules until I realized I'm not your dad and I'm not your boss, so I can't give you rules, but I can make a couple asks.
My first ask is during this session today, if you can, to the best of your ability, be here with me. Be here with me for this session. I know it's 60 minutes on a Monday, last day of the month, maybe end of the quarter for some of y'all. I understand there are so many things going on, but I ask for that attention to start because one, attention affects retention.
If we're kind of all over the place, we can miss something. But also, too, anyone feel tired from time to time? Anyone here feel a little bit tired from time to time? Just me? Just me? Or some of y'all clearly aren't in revenue leadership because you know damn well you get tired throughout all this, okay?
Right, multitasking drains us more so. Although we feel like we're getting more done when we're multitasking—trying to pay attention to three things—it actually drains us even further. So, paying attention to one thing at a time is a better way to go through it.
And I love cameras on if you can. There's a reason why I asked to do it in this setting where I can see people versus the webinar where you can't see anybody. So, if you are in a position to have cameras on, I would appreciate it because then I know I'm talking to people. I can talk to myself by myself; I like to talk to people and see and engage and go through. So, if you can do cameras, I appreciate it.
My second ask is engagement, right? I'm going to ask y'all a lot of questions in these sessions. What do you think I expect to happen in the chat when I ask a question? What do you think I expect to happen in the chat when I ask a question? Ori nailed it! I would really love awkward silence; that's my favorite, right? No! I want the answers!
And we didn't pass that first test really well, so I'm going to try that again. When I ask a question, what do you think I expect to see in the chat? Let's try this again. Words? Answers? See, there we go!
Now, I realize I might have to wake somebody up on a Monday, but it's the responses, right? This is what makes it for you. If there is no engagement, if there is no back and forth, this could have been a recording, y'all. We're live, and you're here with me live, and that allows the engagement to matter, right?
So, as I'm asking questions, I love to see that chat light up. So, cool! We ready for this, y'all? Can I get a thumbs up to dive in if we're bought in on the ask, ready to learn a little bit, ready to go through it? Let's rock, y'all!
So, the whole concept here, right? This idea of "aim small, miss small." Who here did see The Patriot back in the day with Mel Gibson? Right? When you remember the movie, Mel Gibson and The Patriot, right? It's an old Revolutionary War movie.
In that movie, at one point, he's going hunting with his sons, and the first thing he tells them, like a deer comes into sight, the first thing he tells his sons is "breathe," which is actually going to be my first recommendation. Everybody here, take a quick deep breath for me. Breathe in, let it out. You know how much we hold our breath during the day without realizing it?
Okay, but the second he says "aim small, miss small," with the concept here being if you're aiming at a deer, you're gonna miss by a deer. Whereas if you're aiming at the white speck on the left shoulder blade, even if you miss the speck, you're still hitting your target.
And this is a concept that applies very, very strongly to leadership as well because oftentimes we use the wrong type of language with our people. So, I have to open up with something that maybe throws people off a little bit, but this: hey, I got bad news, y'all. You can't change results. You can't change results.
Where do results live? Past, present, or future? Where do results live? Past, present, or future? Results live in the past! That's what makes them a result; it has occurred already. It is done, right? Results are in the past. We can't change the results; they've already occurred, right?
But we tend to use very results-based language with our team. And here's what I mean: who here has ever said, "We need more pipeline"? Anybody ever uttered those words before? We need more pipeline. What about more revenue? Anybody? Any of my sales leaders? We need more revenue; we need to bring more deals across.
Okay, right? We need to improve our churn. Y'all, that's results-based language! If it was as easy as telling people the results we needed, what wouldn't we need? If all it took to get results was to tell people the results we wanted, what would we not need?
Foreign people who didn't need us, right? Like legit, Adam could run all of your teams in one Slack channel. Just wake up every day, stretch, get a good workout, and go, "All right, y'all, we need more revenue," and then go back to bed, right? It's silly when we use the analogy, but it's the truth.
Oftentimes, we use results-based language, and then we wonder why the results aren't actually there. So, the first takeaway I want y'all to recognize: you cannot change results without changing a metric. You cannot change results without changing a metric.
So, if I want revenue to go up, should I be talking about revenue, or should I be talking about a revenue-based metric? Y'all following me here? It's not about revenue; it's about the metric or metrics that are causing revenue not to be where it needs to be.
So, the first step in this idea of "aim small, miss small" in revenue leadership is we have to identify the key metrics behind the results that we are looking for.
So now, I'm not saying to Jose, "We need more revenue." I'm saying, "Hey, we need more revenue, and I've identified that it's our close rate that's holding us back." We have to get into the metric, right? And Eddie nailed it here: metrics are the leading indicators to the results.
Okay, this is starting to aim smaller, but is that enough? Can I just say, "Jose, bring your close rate up"? Have we ever said those words before, y'all? Where we do we aim a little bit smaller? Like, "Hey, yo, we need to bring our close rates up; we got to bring our deal size up." All that is still results-based language, okay?
So, if metrics are the leading indicators to results, you all know what the leading indicators to metrics are? The leading indicator to metrics: BPS—behaviors, processes, skills.
Behaviors, processes, and skills are the leading indicators to the metric. So where should we actually be focusing more of our language and our instructions and our questions? If you want to be world-class in leadership, it's actually down here.
The metrics and the behaviors, processes, and skills is where you want to be focusing your attention, your questions, and your engagement is here, right? Because if we just talk about the results, that's easy, right? Anyone can talk about results.
Here is where we identify the metric and we identify the behaviors, processes, and skills driving it, right? Because, by the way, y'all, this down here—this is why we are here. Whose job is it to identify the number one metric? Whose job is it to identify the number one metric to focus on? Point them out if you can see them.
Okay, that is our job—to identify the number one metric and then to identify the behaviors, processes, and skills behind that metric to improve it. That's why we exist.
I don't know if I have any former reps or managers on this call right now; hopefully, I got a couple. It's always fun because then you know I'm telling the truth because they can call me on my BS. We rarely talk about results as a team. Rarely talked about results.
Why do you think that was? Why do we not talk about results a lot in our team meetings and in our one-on-ones? Right? It's in the past! I have a dashboard for results; I can look at it worth a million dollars. Yay! We need to talk about what's causing that, right?
So this is the first part of it: we're looking at not the results but the cause. So here's what I'd like you all to write down in just a second level, okay? Leaders, right?
Okay, leaders talk about the what. Okay? Leaders talk about the what. What do we want? More revenue. What do we want? More dials. What do we want? Faster implementation.
Okay, leaders talk about the what. Good leaders start to get into the why. Any Simon Sinek fans in the house right now? Right? The Golden Circle and the why.
Okay, so, but here's important: whose why do we also need to address if we're truly trying to improve results? Whose why do we also need to address? And I might wait for 51 responses to this one because I want to make sure we understand this.
Okay, team, y'all reply: customer why! It can't just be our why, right? As much as I wish our reps cared about the board and cared about the pressure coming down our neck for things, we need to connect the dots to their why.
And I love how many of y'all called out the customer why because do we ever maybe have conflicting things that we're asking our people for? We're asking them to drive up, oh, I don't know, average contract value while at the same time that then alienates the customer and what they are paying for.
We can have conflicting whys there, so we need to align around the why. So, okay, leaders talk about what; good leaders get into the why; great leaders—and this is my hope with all of y'all being here—great leaders get into the how.
How can we change the result? How can we change the behavior? That's great leadership, right? When you can then talk about the what, connect the dots to the why, and get into how to affect it.
That's the mission of today: how can we get into this? And we're going to get very tactical here because I want to give you all the out. I didn't want y'all to show up to a webinar to tell you what to do: "aim small, miss small" tagline. No, we're gonna get into how to actually do this.
But this is the concept that I want you all to realize, and hopefully, you start to catch yourself when you only ask for the what. I want you to catch yourself: what do we want? More dials? Did we connect any dots there to whys?
If you ask someone what you want, that should be your trigger on, "I gotta connect the dot to a why," and that should be a trigger on getting into the how.
Now, I do want to call this out real quick: when I talk about the how, does this mean we need to boss our people around? Does this mean I should be telling my people exactly how to do their job?
Okay, all right, I just wanted to make sure before anyone's like, "What? I just gotta tell them how!" No, no, that's not it. But it does help craft the questions I'm going to ask because the questions I'm going to ask are going to lead to the how, right?
And that's why it's BPS, right? Pat nailed it: Behavior, Process, Skill. If there isn't a process, that's going to be really hard to improve it.
All right, so this lays the foundation: this idea of "aim small, miss small," what, why, and how. And then we have to then get into the frameworks that we are going to discuss.
But in order to do that, what did I say? I said you can't change a result without changing a what? You can't change a result without changing a what? What was that first line? Y'all didn't know I was going to test you during this, did you?
There we go! And yeah, there we go! Someone came off mute too! Y'all don't be scared; that's why we're in this right now. You gotta change a metric!
So, if we think about revenue, pipeline, and expansion, I want to very quickly identify what are the key metrics behind these buckets so we can start to narrow our focus.
So think about revenue first: what are the key revenue metrics? Meaning if this metric improves, revenue goes up. If this metric improves and everything else stays the same, revenue goes up. What are some of those key revenue metrics?
Thank you! There we go! So it was close rate, inbound leads, right? So we've got win rate, overall calls, ACV. Okay, what else we got in here? Win rate, ACV, deal size.
So we have that. Here's a big one that you need to track. Okay, there we go! Cycle is a good one. Now, sales cycle is an example of a layered metric, right?
So sales cycle doesn't affect how much revenue comes in; it affects when it comes in. But what other metric tends to go down the longer the cycle? What other metric tends to come down the longer the cycle?
There you go! Close rate! So it's a layered metric where sales cycle might be the problem or not, but it's actually affecting win rate. Here's another very important one: pipeline, right?
But you have to track the two V's of pipeline: two V's—pipeline value, pipeline volume. And this is very, very important, okay?
So to my revenue leaders, who here's ever said, like, "Hey, we need 3x coverage, 4x coverage"? You never heard this one before, right? We need 3x coverage.
All right, y'all, let's break this down. 3x coverage only works if your close rate is what? 3x coverage only works if your close rate is 33%.
But then here's where it gets even better: coverage is at a value number or a volume number for most companies. If my target is one million dollars, for a lot of companies, when they say coverage, they want 3 million in pipeline, right? Y'all with me so far?
It's a value number. Close rate is calculated off of volume. So this is where a lot of companies miss. I might have 3 million value, but if I only have four deals in my pipeline and my close rate is 20%, am I getting to my number?
I've got four deals; my close rate is 20%. Twenty, twenty percent! I'm not getting to my number even though I had value coverage. This is important! Oftentimes, people miss value and volume.
If my close rate is 20%, what volume multiple do I need? If my close rate is 20%, what volume multiple do I need? Buy! And that's the number of opportunities, not pipeline value.
So these are big ones that we need to track: pipeline value, pipeline volume.
Okay, now let's move to pipeline metrics because now it's like, "All right, if I want more revenue, I'm not talking about revenue; I'm talking about close rate." I'm not talking about revenue; I'm talking about deal size. I'm not talking about revenue; I'm talking about pipeline value, pipeline volume.
But now we got to get into the pipeline metrics because same idea: we have a taller people; we need more pipeline. Who in here needs more pipeline, by the way? Anyone? Anyone need more pipeline? That's what I thought, right? We all need more pipeline! Pipeline cheers! Everything!
Okay, but how many of y'all know where the pipeline farm is? We can just go out and just pick some pipeline and get it? Okay, doesn't exist! So we have to hit the pipeline metrics.
So let's go deeper here: what are the metrics behind pipeline? Meaning if these metrics improve, pipeline improves. There we go! I heard someone saying it earlier, so I was just waiting to get to this part.
First of all, number of leads! Okay, if number of leads go up and everything else stays the same, pipeline goes up. What else? What else? Right there! Number of leads! Someone mentioned earlier: activity! You have dials and you have emails.
Now here's something key, okay? When you are making calls, you have to track these two metrics: connect rate and conversation conversion rate.
Connect rate: out of 100 calls, how many times do I talk to somebody? And then conversion rate: I talk to 10 people; how many of them say yes to a meeting? That's what helps you craft the activity mark.
There are a lot of companies out there right now that pick their activity marks like this: "Yeah, 60 a day sounds good. Yeah, I like that. 60 sounds all right." You need to base it off the math—the connect rate and the conversion rate. You need to track these.
Someone else threw a good one in here: show rate! Because do all meetings show up? Do all meetings show up? No! So we need to track this one, right, as a key metric.
So we have show rate, and then if you have call it a call rate, right? Because also, are all meetings qualified? No! Right? So you need to track that number as well.
Okay, so now same idea: I'm not asking for more pipeline; I have to address one of these metrics to get more pipeline.
And now I want to get to expansion because expansion metrics change. Expansion, churn, upsell—these metrics change because all of these metrics we've covered, these are individual metrics, right?
What is, you know, what is Caddy's close rate? What's Brendan's ACV? What is Amber's connector? Those are individual. When you move into like the CS side, it changes from individual metrics to account metrics.
Account metrics meaning if this metric about the account changes, the likelihood of churn or the likelihood of upsell goes up or down. So what are those? What would be an example of an account metric where if this metric was better on an account, the likelihood of expansion would go up? Or if this metric was bad, churn goes up?
Here we go! Now we're nearly! So, okay, and we got net revenue retention. We've got—there we go, Brandon! Utilization! There we go! Not a great speller, but completely blacked out on that word!
Okay, utilization, right? Are they using the product? If they're not using it, expansion is going to be really hard. If they are using it, we've got a shot. What else? We've got SLA.
What do you mean by SLA on this one, Adam? Uh, responsiveness! There we go! Yes! Love that one! So like responsiveness and internally on our side, are we following our SLA, right? Like are we going through it?
Oh, Julie nailed one: time to impact! Actually, it's fun! Okay, because also, too, it's time to impact different than speed of onboarding, right? A lot of companies track how quickly they can onboard someone, but they're not tracking speed to impact, right?
Am I getting the impact for them that we are looking for? Yes! Support cases! All right, if they're submitting a lot of support cases, is that a different type of customer and different type of process here? Right?
So logins, here's another one, right? Ooh, participation as an advocate! Right? So again, like that connect rate with our advocate. These are, again, what we're looking for is the account metrics because if I know I want to improve expansion, I'm not talking about expansion; I'm talking about utilization.
If we can bring utilization up, our expansion odds get better. If we can shorten speed to impact, our expansion rates get better.
Okay, there we go! NPS! Okay, now also, funny enough about NPS scores for my CS leaders here, right? You all know maybe where I'm going with this. What percentage of customers respond to the NPS survey? What percentage? If you have a hundred customers, how many of them respond to the NPS survey?
So what does this maybe let us know? Okay, is NPS the best measure to tell how an account is doing if only less than 10% are actually responding to that type of communication, right?
But a lot of companies will base it on NPS, and thank you, Asha or Aisha, if I got that right. It's also lagging, right? It's a lagging, not a leading because if you're honest, oftentimes they churn before they update their NPS. They already left, right? They already canceled before you even had a chance to say, "Hey!" They're lagging.
Where is utilization? You know this, right? Logins, you know this, right? So it's making sure that we're tracking these metrics.
Now, are there more metrics than this you can track? Are there more metrics than this? Of course! But this right here, y'all, this is SaaS! What we have mapped right here for the most part, 90% of companies we go and look at when they're having a revenue problem, it's because they're having a problem with one of these things.
And if they're having a pipeline problem, it's because they're having a problem with one of these things. And if they're having expansion or churn problems, it's because they're having a problem with one of these things.
This is SaaS! This is why we talk about the bow tie so often at Winning by Design: where do we make most of our money, by the way, in SaaS? Where do we make most of our money? Is it at the front end or the back end?
We make our money over here, keeping people, expanding people, growing people, right? But oftentimes, it doesn't get the same amount of attention from like a metrics process and a coaching process.
But right here is SaaS! If you are having revenue issues, it's because of one of these things. And that's what sets up what we're going to talk about next, which is then how do we actually change these things?
So we're going to walk you through the framework called REX, right? So REX is our framework now on how do we change it, right? Because where we've built up to so far, our language has changed. We're no longer talking about revenue; we're talking about close rate, right?
We're no longer talking about expansion; we're talking about utilization. This is us aiming small with our language and our focus, but now we actually have to change that. We have to make improvements. That's where REX comes in as your framework.
So the R in REX stands for results, right? So the R in REX stands for results, AKA what is the result I'm trying to change? But if you're doing "aim small, miss small," revenue is not the result.
What would be an example of a result? What would be an example of a result that we're trying to improve? Let's see if y'all are with me still so far. There we go! Revenue is not the result. The result we're trying to change is conversion rate.
The result we're trying to change is win rate, right? The result we're trying to change is utilization. It's very, very important that the result is a metric or a behavior, not just revenue.
So we're already starting to aim a little bit smaller, right? If it's close rate that we're focused on, it's ACV that we're focused on, it's utilization, it's speed to impact, it's onboarding—that is the result behind the result.
Can I get a thumbs up if you're with me so far? You follow me with the result behind the result? Okay, cool! Revenue, great! That's that result. What's the result behind the result? Close rate! The result behind the result? Utilization!
That's where the R comes in: what is the result I'm looking for? E stands for efforts, meaning what are the things 100% in our control that if we did would impact this metric?
And by the way, y'all, we're going to do one of these live. Like, we're going to pick a revenue, a pipeline, and a CS metric, and we are going to map this out as a group. So stay with me here.
But here, what's in our control? 100% in our control. So here's the classic one that I'll hear, and we'll break this down: "Oh, just, oh, we want more pipeline. Make more calls!"
I mean, okay, but we actually could move calls up here, and then we can talk about what's in our control to make more calls, right? So this is what's in our control 100%. The rep can do this, and it can lead to a better result.
The K stands for knowledge, AKA what do they need to know in order to improve the results? Now, this is a big one, y'all, that I just gotta throw out here.
Have you ever taken the time to sit down and map out all the things your people need to know to do their job? Like, y'all, think about this real quick. All right, throw a yes in the chat for me if this describes your company at all.
Okay, who here has more than one competitor? Who here has more than one competitor? Good! Who here has more than one persona? Who here has multiple features and benefits of their product? Who has multiple sales stages? Who has multiple messaging? Who has multiple objections?
Who has multiple messaging and objections by persona based on the product line? Y'all, think about this for a second. And what are we hoping all of our people can do? Remember all of that? Is that even possible to remember all of that in the moment?
The key to knowledge, y'all, first is you need to make it referenceable, not rememberable. How quickly can they reference the information? That's the key to scaling and scaling fast.
I don't need to remember it all; I need to be able to reference it. That's what playbooks are for; that's what checklists are for, right? Is to make it referenceable because sales leader to sales leader, y'all, if your people are trying to remember something on a call, what can't they do?
If they are trying to remember something on a call—remember what to say, remember the objection, remember the language—what can't they do? You can't listen! And if they can't listen, they can't discover. And if they can't discover, they can't sell.
And if they can't sell, they're trying to remember it all versus making it referenceable. As I look at my career, y'all, I think one book had one of the biggest impacts on my career in scaling sales teams, and it was The Checklist Manifesto.
Has anyone here read The Checklist Manifesto? Sarah, you don't count; I know you've read this one already. Okay, okay, but The Checklist Manifesto, okay?
And what's beautiful about this book is it wasn't written by a salesperson; it wasn't written by a business leader; it was written by a surgeon. And what it talked about is how checklists brought down death rates in hospitals, and checklists brought down infection rates in hospitals, and checklists brought down misdiagnosis and improper prescriptions in hospitals.
So if checklists can work for doctors, who else can they work for? Who's taking a flight recently? What does your pilot do? There you go! Now he's got right ahead of me! What does your pilot do before every single flight?
Foreign! That's about referencing, not remembering! So the knowledge—this is why you have playbooks, and this is why you have checklists—so I don't have to remember it; I can reference it, right? I can reference it in the moment and quickly.
Okay, knowledge is taught. You teach someone the knowledge, and you make it referenceable. And then the last S stands for skill. What skills do they need to improve that metric?
The difference between knowledge and skill: knowledge is taught; skills are practiced. You practice a skill. Now, we don't have enough time to go on my rant today about practice in sales and CS if I would do a mini session here, okay?
If your people are not practicing with you, who are they practicing with? If your people are not practicing with you, who are they practicing with? Oh, they sure are practicing! They're practicing with the customer or the prospect! Is that where you want them to practice? With real money in real situations?
Okay, this, to me, truth for y'all is one of the biggest holes in almost every sales org that I go into and CS org that I walk into to work on is the reps are practicing with the customers. They are not practicing on purpose with each other.
So, Jessica, the difference: knowledge is taught; skills are practiced. So here would be an example: you can teach someone the personas, right? You teach someone the personas; the skill would be asking pain-related questions for that persona.
So you would practice the skill of pain questions after teaching someone the persona. That helped, Jessica, right? And I love this! This is why we're live here, y'all, to be able to ask your questions.
But that's the difference, right? You teach it, and then you practice it. And last rant on practice: who here played a sport or instrument growing up? Anybody? You know, and play a sport or instrument growing up, right? Saying good choir, whatever else.
Did you play more or practice more? Did you play more or practice more? Just gonna let this hang in the air for just a second because we all know this intuitively, but then when it comes to our orgs, we don't run it this way.
We have to—this is the foundation of skill development, right? Because here's what gets—who's ever heard the quote, "Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard"? You ever heard that one before, right? Hard work beats talent if talent doesn't work hard.
So it's not real, y'all! And here's what I mean, okay? If Vanessa is two times better than me at something, how much harder do I have to work to beat Vanessa? If she is two times better than me, how much harder do I have to work to beat Vanessa?
Three times harder to beat her! Skill actually trumps almost everything, and skill comes from skill work, right? And practice!
All right, so this is our framework. Now we're gonna do this live, so someone throw out a revenue metric. I'm gonna steal one of the pipeline metrics because I think it's important. Someone throw out a CS-related metric, and we are going to rock this, okay?
Let's throw out a metric, and we are going to do this live so you can see how this works. There we go! So we got utilization! Okay, let's do bingo close rate, and then I'm gonna steal the pipeline one and use dials because this one gets confused often.
All right, so we've got our three key metrics here. Let's go down this list: efforts. What is in a CS rep's control that if they did would impact utilization? What is in a CS rep's control that if they did would positively impact utilization?
Okay, so we got QBRs, right? Now, QBRs, are QBRs in their control to get? Can I just go get a QBR? What would be in my control to get more QBRs? What would be in my control to get more QBRs?
There you go! Okay, so status checks! That is in my control! If I am doing status checks, that is in my control! There we go! Engagement cadence, right? Following the engagement cadence, 100% that is in my control!
Who developed relationships? I like that! In order to develop a relationship, I need to be reaching out, right? So a classic one for CS: would it be helpful if they were more multi-threaded, like in touch with more people in the account?
Right? So, ooh! So, bend the other one: establishing QBRs as a norm in onboarding. So in onboarding, I establish and maybe even get them on the calendar—my CS folks maybe schedule those four QBRs in onboarding. Just throwing that out as a quick idea while you got them live, right?
That's scheduling those things; that is in their control! Here's one: holding the utilization report! Is that in a CS rep's control to pull the report to know what utilization is? Right? So that could be the pulling of the report.
Let's jump over to closer. What's in a closer's control that if they did would impact close rate? What do we got here? So I'm a closer; if I do this and it's in my control, close rate tends to go up.
Follow-up! Nailed it! Follow-up is in my control, right? That is in my control! Am I working my pipeline? 100%! What else is in my control as a closer?
Thank you, Brandon! Asking for the sale! Is that in my control? It is in my control to ask for the sale! And it's actually shocking how often people don't!
And what I love about asking for the sale is that one's going to be a triple because it's asking for the sale in my control. Yes! Do I need to know how to ask for the sale? Yes! Can I practice asking for the sale? Yes! That's a triple, which means what about that?
It's pretty important, right? So you want to look for overlap here. Creating mutual action plans, okay? And right, this is the key one: creating the mutual action plan is in my control.
Getting agreement might not be, but creating it sure as hell is! What about targeting? Do certain accounts close better than other accounts? Certain industries, certain personas, certain segments?
So targeting, especially if I'm doing outbound, that is in my control! Who am I targeting? Right? In my control! What affects closer?
Now let's jump over to dials because this is one of my favorite ones to talk about because sometimes do we just say dial is the result? Just dial more? Who's ever told their team they need to make more dials?
Anybody? Anybody? Some of y'all are lying right now, and I know it, and that's okay; we're in the nest! All right, so we talk about this. I see you, Ben, right? It's going, "Okay, more dials! Let's go!"
A layer deeper: what is in my control that if I did would lead to more dials? What is in my control that if I did would lead to more dials?
Okay, time! Right? So time blocking! Right? Is time blocking in my control? Like actually having time blocks to make my dials? That is in my control!
I have time blocks! Planning your day, right? I've yet to see anything increase activity more than just knowing who you're calling that day, ready to go! Right? I got 50 names ready! I've got it!
So did they have a plan? Right? Do they have a plan and a prep sheet? What else is in my control? What else is in my control that if I wanted to make more dials in my control to make more dials?
If I need to make 50 dials, what do I need to have ready? If I need to make 50 dials, what do I need to have ready? 50 leads!
So is lead scrubbing in my control? I mean, I'm scrubbing enough leads to get there, so we can talk about lead scrub.
So I'm gonna pause here real quick. Y'all see what we're doing here in terms of "aim small, miss small," where it's no longer talking to Kathy about utilization. I'm talking about utilization and identifying, you know what? I think we need to do more status checks with our book of business.
We're starting to aim smaller than just leaving it at the top. Let's go another layer deeper. Knowledge: what do you need to know in order to improve utilization? What do you need to know in order to improve utilization?
Why do you need to know? There we go! Needed to know customer use case! Absolutely! What else do you need to know to improve utilization?
Well, now we're getting there! The pain points that they came in with! Benchmarks for health, right? Like are they above or below that line? Let's keep these coming!
Oh, access! Right? Do they even have access to the right pieces of the product? Impact! Hell yes! We need to know the impact that they're looking for!
Cess levels! Okay, right? These are the things that we need to know in order to improve utilization. And funny enough, what didn't show up yet in here? Do you need to know the product well to improve utilization?
Yeah, coming to do! Okay, you need to know the product! You need to know this, okay? Because could I know someone's pain point but not know the product well enough to make a good recommendation?
Could I know someone's pain point but not know the product well enough to make a true recommendation? So I need to know the product use case very, very well, right?
Closing: what do I need to know to improve close rate? What do I need to know to improve close rate? I need to know the budget! I need to know the timeline!
What else do I need to know? Need to know the power map, right? Org structure! There you go! Critical events! Absolutely!
Okay, we've got BANT there, right? Authority, need, and timing! Their problem, right? So one of the things that we teach here, we call it SPICED, right? This is like our framework in terms of knowledge, right?
We need to know the situation; we need to know the pain; we need to know the impact; we need to know a critical event; we need to know the decision-making process. We need to know these things in order to improve our closure because if you don't know their situation, it's gonna be really tough to close.
If you don't know a critical event, it's gonna be really tough to close, right? So your methodology goes into the knowledge portion of this, right? I'm like, what do they need to know?
Oh, Brandon, thank you! Stories! Do they need to know customer stories? Okay, this is one of my fa—oh man, I should have pulled it out before I had my green screen.
So for like my last, or I built customer story cards like a deck of playing cards, and there are 52 of them that had a customer story, customer quote, and customer results that my reps just had at their desk to reference—not remember, reference—on the call.
So they have those stories, so I love that one, Brad! Thank you for calling that one out, right? So this is what they need to know in order to—now let's go to dials. What do you need to know to make more dials? What do you need to know to make more dials?
Oh, there must be a delay on my side to your side; that's why the chat's so quiet right now. It's cool, like no big deal! There we go!
Okay, they need to know their contacts! Need to know who you are calling! They need to know the personas! Hey, you need to have good numbers!
Okay, someone mentioned this earlier: do you need to know how to use the tech stack? I do need to know how to use the tech stack, right? To run through there, we go! Right? The operations behind it!
Okay, you need to know these things! And now let's go to skill as we wrap up. What skills do you need to improve utilization? Skills do you need to improve utilization, meaning you could practice this. This is something you can get better at.
What skills do you need to improve utilization? Thank you, Amber! Listening! Listening is a skill! Oh, we're getting the up arrows on that, right? Everyone's just gonna bump Amber's response, right, of listening!
Okay, but you gotta practice it! You gotta practice listening! Are they catching what you want them to catch on these calls? In order to listen, that means you got to be asking what in order to listen?
You got to be asking good questions, right? So we have to ask better questions! Closers, what skills do you need to improve close rate? What skill do you need to improve closing?
Let's go! The skill: how you're running the demo! It's a skill, right? Because also, too, could we chunk disco down even further? Are there skills within disco? Are there skills within disco?
What are some skills within disco? What are some skills within the demo? There we go! So we have asking good questions, right? Am I asking good impact questions? Am I asking good, you know, thank you, Rocket Mortgage, not interested?
There you go! I'm asking good pain questions! Am I asking good impact questions? Am I asking good questions?
We're getting better at asking pain questions! We're going to get better at asking impact questions! We're going to be better at connecting the dots! Aim small, miss small!
You cannot just tell someone to get better at the demo if there's a hundred things within the demo! Oh, and Kyle, I bet you can already tell: do you think I had a disco checklist? Oh, you better believe I had a disco checklist and a demo checklist and a follow-up checklist, right? Just to make sure the right things are occurring, right?
So this concept, y'all, is what I mean by "aim small, miss small." And if you take the time to map this out, who can use it? If you had this mapped out for your team, for your key metrics, what the efforts are, what the knowledge is, and what the skill is for each of the key metrics, who else can use it?
This right here, y'all, is how you scale without killing yourself and running yourself into the ground. Once this is documented, everybody can use it! And this is how we get away from micromanagement!
I don't go to Pat and I say, "Hey, Pat, your close rate is low, and it's because you're not following up, and we're not telling good stories, and you're horrible at disco." Is that gonna fire Pat up to improve? Is that gonna get them going?
Okay, there's not enough pipe—never is! Right? Versus, "Hey, Pat, in our next one-on-one, I'd like to dive into how we could bring our close rate up because it's preventing you from getting to that, you know, accelerator in your comp plan that I know you're trying to get to."
Go through the REX checklist for close rate! Let's come into our one-on-one ready to talk about where we think we can focus! It's a little bit of a different way to lead, right? Because now, who's involved in this process?
Right? Pat's involved in the process! He can diagnose with me, not just be dictated through me, right? And working through it!
So this is the process of "aim small, miss small," y'all, is we identify the result we want. Once we identify the result we want, we identify the metric we want. Once we identify the metric we want, we're identifying the behavior, process, or skill.
And that's what leads us to REX! And then from there, we don't have time for today; that's where you set up a coaching plan because now do I know what I need to focus on? I know for Amanda we're working on utilization; the skill is status checks, and I'm gonna create a coaching plan to develop the skill on how to ask better questions, how to dig in a little bit more, and document this.
This process you can change in org in 90 days when you start to narrow your focus, narrow your coaching, narrow your feedback, and actually come up with a plan to make people better. That's the key to driving results! That's the key to impact!
Right? So as we wrap up here, y'all, one, I hope—do we get some value from this? Do we get some juice from this? Things that we can use, we can rock with? There we go!
I'm gonna get one thumbs up; that's all I need is just one thumbs up, right, to say, "Hey, we got some good stuff from this."
So with this, there's action items in this, okay? One, how long did it take for us to do that exercise? Did you catch it? How long did it take for us to map out REX for a metric? How long did that take?
We did it live, right? We did it live for the first time, and it took maybe 10 minutes to map that out for a metric. So what do you think your assignment is? Go pick those key metrics and start mapping it out!
So map REX! That's the first part of this: map this! Take some time to do this, y'all! Work on your business for once, not just in your business!
Okay? Then the second part is making sure that you have these metrics in a place where they're easy to find because if reps can't find these metrics, that you can't find these metrics, no one can use them! Gotta make it easier!
And the last hopeful takeaway from today is focus on skill! More practice more with your people, right? Because part of what we cover today comes from our manager-to-coach program, right?
Because we identify the metric—great! We identify the skill we need to work on—great! Now you actually have to know how to coach it! Like how do you run a role play? How do you build a coaching cadence, right? And so that's something that we can spend time on as well.
So with that, y'all, we got two minutes left here. Are there any other outstanding questions? What else, right? What else can we cover within this? You feel good about it?
So then here's my last ask, y'all: if you got some value from this one, hit us up! This is what we do! This is what we do! Let us help you! But to spread the word, if you can, if you grab the screenshot, if you got a note, posting that on LinkedIn also is very valuable because yourself spread the word on what we're trying to do, which is help make y'all better, to make your people better, to make the results better.
So I appreciate y'all! Thank you very, very much for your time, your energy, your engagement today! Hope you got some value from it! Looking forward to hopefully working with some of y'all in the future!
Deuces! We're out! We did it!