I like the concept of big our business relationship, little our personal relationship,
and I think those two things go in and glove really really well. I
think it's important that they know that you are real Burton. You're listening to
the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that helps you and your teams sell more
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Hello and welcome to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm Rachel clapp Miller.
Today we are going to talk about what closing your deal, but also
more specifically, staying aligned with your champion. And Brian Walls joins me today
for this conversation. Hi Brian, Hi Rachel, Well, how are you
good? Good? Champions are such a big topic, right, It's something
whenever we have an article or a podcast or a video on champions, it
always does really well. I know. We just did a Revenue Builders podcast
with Richard Rivera who wrote a whole book on champions. Oh. I hope
I don't mess up today because I haven't heard that one yet, so we'll
Suffice is saying. My whole point is we're not going to get to it
all in this podcast. Yeah yeah, but want to cover a little bit
about We talk about testing your champion, developing your champion, but I want
to talk about staying aligned with the champions throughout the sales process. And for
some of you listening, I know your sales processes can be pretty long.
So let's talk about that today. And I know Brian that we've had plenty
of conversations about getting multi threaded in your deal and coming up with the collective.
Yes, and so when we talk about this concept of champion, you
a champion is a definite asset, but you can't stop with just the champion.
Yeah, so great place to start, right, I mean great champions,
right, And I'm assuming here that everybody's good with the difference between a
coach and a champion, and coaches are good. I want to be very
clear. Having coaches is good because to your point, you have to have
more than one for involving you to deal. Right. If your deal's got
four, six, eight, multiple people involved and you've got a true champion,
that's great. But the thing that that one person alone is going to
get those other five, six, eight, ten people across the line is
probably a misinformed point of view. That is pretty rare. Right, Even
the greatest champions can rarely win the game all by themselves. It's kind of
what we're saying here. So that means you've got a responsibility to make sure
that as you're developing that champion relationship. And this is a good example of
the difference in terms of relationship in terms of what I call big ARE and
little R little R. Little R relationship is we go to lunch, we
play golf, etc. Right, big are is this kind of thing.
We have business conversations, We have deep conversations about all the other players in
the deal. What do those people care about? How are we aligning to
their metrics, How are we helping them think through based on the seat that
they send into the decision process, the stuff that they need to think about
to get to a great outcome from a technical buying perspective or an economic buying
perspective or an implementation perspective. So I've got Rachel, who I've built this
great, big our relationship with because she and I both care about the business
she has metrics and business outcomes that she's trying to achieve that really make her
a crime candidate to be our champion because she's personally connected to those things.
Is all great, but I've got to make sure that I'm helping her constantly
remind herself of the collective picture of the other five, seven, nine people
that are involved in this, and I have to play an active role in
that. I can't just assume that Rachel knows what those people care about,
who those people even are, how they're feeling about this decision process and all
those things. So I hope that's scrapped in the itch for you, because
for me, it was always about, Hey, I've got this champion in
Rachel, but what am I doing next to help her continue to see the
picture or the bigger picture that aligns with all these other players in the deal
and think through how are we actively going to go start to fill in some
of those gaps with one of those folks or two of those different folks.
Great points, I mean, the champion is a great tool to have in
your deal, but they're not a magic bullet, and you can't abdicate your
responsibility for building the collective yes, aligning to the different departments. Just because
you have a champion, well you know what I mean. You know I
have a music background. It just makes me think of the conductor versus the
individual artists playing different instruments. The champions are conductor, which is great.
Like I just saw the Cleveland Orchestra a couple of months ago, one of
the top five orchestras in the world, and the conductor is amazing. But
if there ain't in anybody playing the right parts at the right time, doesn't
matter how good here he is. And that's kind of the thing I think
about, like, I got to make sure I'm helping that person see these
different sections of the orchestra and make sure that we're helping them play their part.
So let's talk about aligning to that conductor, not at we've kind of
level set everybody around that. When you were selling and a note, or
even now when you are moving forward deals for us, what were your best
practices for checking in. That's a great question. It's also a great phrase
checking in. Let's start with that. Let's start with the premise that I
don't believe you have the right to quote unquote check me in, right,
and people do this all the time. You see subject aligned in the email
that take just checking in? Right, Oh, that's the first thing.
Checking in waste people's time, right, And it makes you look I think
I'm professional. So there's a couple pieces of advice here. If you think
you've got a champion, or you know you've got a champion, never check
in. That probably applies to a greater subset of people. But don't check
in. Have a real purpose that's valuable for that person and make them want
to spend that time with you as a result. Right, And I'm kind
of doing this on the fly, But you know, I had the opportunity
to meet up with somebody who happened to be here where I live in town
last week. He was in town with his bout to family, and so
we meet up and we had a really great chat and at the end I
said, you know, Lan, I'm gonna send you a note tomorrow with
just a couple of thoughts on that that that would be perfect. That's a
good example. I could have the next day said hey, if you check
it in, how do you think the meeting went? That's great to see
you. But instead, you know, I titled the subject of the email
very specifically to a critical conversation we were having with him in his firm,
and then I said, hey, great Totha yesterday, here are three big
things we talked about that we've got to get you and the right other people
from you know, I named a few other people from his executive team that
we got to get in the room. And that's maybe on the fly example
that maybe everybody's saying, well, of course you would do that, but
people do this all the time. They just throw up this hey checking in
right, what's new kind of thing, And I think you got to you
got to make sure that you're really pointed. I'm reaching out for a specific
reason that's valuable to you. I think there's a couple other things. I
try to always make it about them, both from a business perspective and a
personal perspective. I like the concept of big our business relationship, little our
personal relationship, and I think those two things go hand and glove really really
well. I think it's important that they know that you are a real person
and that you authentically care about who they are. Those kinds of things.
I think the other thing I like to remember, and someone we've done some
work with the boor named Scott Rudy taught me this probably eight years ago,
and i'd been in sale for twenty five bofe years at that point. As
Scott thought, reminded me of something that you know, every time you reach
out, you should always start with something personal that attaches you. Know,
so God as a Pittsburgh English fan, I'm a Cleveland Browns fan. So
we now have this long standing and it's been a while since we've connected on
an email, but whenever we do, it always starts with some sort of
Pittsburgh Cleveland jab and that's a nice way to kind of remind ourselves of the
personal side of the relationship. And I think, well, I'll stop there.
There's a couple of other maybe best practices from the in terms of the
care and feeding of champions I'd like to share as we go down the line,
but that would be my take. Don't check in, show up with
purpose. Show up with purpose. I love to And you know, I'm
also reminded of a conversation that we had recently on decision process and coming up
with that combined timeline with your customer. I mean, if you have a
combined timeline that you have agreed on that works with or without your solution.
That can give you some benchmarks and reason to check in with purpose, Like,
Hey, I know you're looked to be at this point by this date.
If we want to do that, we need to do X y Z
right. What a perfect example, Rachel, Because now the stuff again on
the fly, the stub deeck maanner can be timeline update. Oh really,
what's going on? Hey, I'm reaching out because you get said either the
timelines week set and I've got some concerns about that flipping if you and I
don't do the following a couple of things this week, let's chat about how
we get those things done. Like, I think that's a really good example.
Always have purpose that helps the champion, not you exactly exactly. And
you've talked a lot about too, this idea of owning the next step in
a meeting, right, but I feel like that plays into this too.
You want to be with purpose to your point, moving the deal forward,
pushing it forward, advancing it in some way with your reachouts. Again,
you've hit the nail on the head. And I think the idea of you
thinking ahead for the champion benefit and say, hey, this is the stuff
that's got to get done. So I'm walking into the meeting knowing not only
was the objective to this conversation, but where are we naturally heading? Assuming
we can achieve that objective? And if I show up owning the next step,
knowing what those next two or three things are, I'm not a leaving
it up to you. Even the best of the champions don't always know what
the next step is, right, So if I leave it up to you,
there's a good chance that something gets blossed or myth which only delays maybe
side tracks that are are up. I think you nailed it right. Well.
You mentioned the big way we can go wrong is to just check in
and not have purpose and sending random emails based on your because because because my
boss only, I have to send action or email today, or I have
to have stick appointments a week. You know that kind of stuff. And
don't get me wrong, I agree that what we do for living includes an
activity level. That's hie. I'm not saying that, But if the moment
you start substituting quality with quantity only, I think you got a problem right
now. It's just like you know, I've never been a big believer in
spray and spray strength. I love that that's kind of your big stop sign
to avoid around this topic. But where are some other areas that sellers can
go wrong when they're trying to stay aligned with a champion? I kind of
mentioned it. Great question, by the way. One of the things I
would strongly suggest that you got to constantly check yourself for is what I'm about
to you or ask for or you know, talk to this champion or anybody
for that matter about is it self serving or is it for them? And
I'll be the first admit there are times that you do things in a sales
campaign that maybe are a little more self serving, but I think jacting that's
a bad thing, right, everything in moderation, but you have to make
sure that what you are doing in the moment is serving the appropriate purpose and
person in the right way. So, you know, the lower your self
orientation the better, because customers can smell a salesperson a mile away who's got
a very high self orientation and that means I only care about me, right.
The higher that number of the more I care about me, and the
less they care about you. So I think that's a big thing it's it's
very interesting. It's hard to get there, I think for a lot of
people, because you know, our mindset is I've got to go sell something.
I have a number to hit. I get that. But what you'll
find over time is if you have and there's a great book out there called,
Oh I'm looking at it, Give and Take. It's a great book,
and it reminds you that the best professionals of the world, to include
sellers, are givers, not takers. Because over time, that giving mentality
starts to come back to you, because people realize that. When I talk
to Rachel, Rachel's typically all is about giving. It's amazing what happens when
you just start to give, right. So I think that's the mistake that
we have a tendency to make. We get so wrapped up in I have
a number that deals in the forecast, that some of the wrong behaviors,
unnatural acts start to come out. I think that's the big thing. I
think the other thing that I would remind people of is and it's somewhat attached
to what I just mentioned, But and John Kaplan and I have known each
other for a long long time. John pought me this a long time ago
when we are in management development together. Is the idea that I stole from
him and he still believes in it. I totally agree with him, which
is the idea of making sure your scampion gets the credit. Right. There's
there are ways. Now you have to be careful with this because it can
come up, as you know, unauthentic if you're not careful. But if
you truly have a champion or even a great coach, there are ways that
you can get that person the credit that they deserve. And again I think
you have to be very careful with this. You know, John has had
this idea that I took from him called the Champion letter. I have probably
in my very long tenure in sales and this role, etc. I have
probably sent three dozen of those. Maybe now, I've done other things to
make sure my champions get the credit. But when the champion really does something
special for their organization, I want to make sure that I do the right
things and communicate that to the right people in a way that is authentic,
doesn't sound self serving for me because it's not meant to being and puts the
champion in a good light with the people that matter to them. What I
love about what I learned from JOHNA how to do that maybe more than anything
is you do that in a way that the champion doesn't even know what they're
coming, right. It should be a very pleasant surprise for the champion when
they get a call from their president who said, hey, Rachel, I
want to tell you about the letter I just got today, right, and
thank that. So I think the care and feeding a champion is really really
critical because you know, the reminder that another mentor gave me years ago is
don't forget today's our user is tomorrow's champion, and today's champion is potentially tomorrow's
economic buyer. Right, So the care and feeding of those relationships, that's
really really, really critical. So there's a couple of things to be I
think that's great. That's rare, some good tips. I know probably have
a lot of listeners nodding their head and writing some notes down there. One
final question I just wanted to ask, or topic to bring up before we
wrap here is we talk about, you know, reach out with purpose,
and we hit that several times in this conversation. We also talk about adding
value. You want to continuously add value to your customer, and sometimes that's
a little bit easier after the deal is done because you they're on the software
and they're using it and you can use it better. How can you add
value? I'd love to get your thoughts on this. How can you add
value before the deal is done? Kind of in that sales process. One
are the things that you can do as a seller? Okay, so I
think this or a bit of a fork in the road. You can take
two different paths here kind of time on the deal on the deal side of
the path, you know, the actual deal that we're pursuing. Just thank
medic right, thank am I constantly helping this CAMPI and think through the different
metrics that are going to matter in the deal for different people at different levels.
Right, The more of those people that we can align around metrics,
the better they can all better chance they have getting in a room together and
saying, yeah, this is a good project. Continues of our time and
our money, etc. So they medic from a metric standpoint, they decision
criteria. Am I helping? Am I thinking my helping my champion think through
all the different decision criteria that all those different people are going to care about.
Right, They're better that thought through the better chance of getting to a
collective yet competition, Am I helping my champion think through what's the real competition
here? And how can the client be thinking about that? And this is
where maybe we start to go forward a little more self serving, which I'm
good with. And how do my champion, how does my champion help me
navigate those competitive waters, especially if the competition has an active champion or they're
already the in place incumbent, those types of things. So I would say
feel specific death, think medic because if you've got a true champion, like
you want to know, if you have a true champion, walk them through
medic, show them your I mean we do this when we have true champions.
We show them are opportunity manager, our solution in salesforce, and we
just talk to them about where the deal is from a medic perspective. And
if you have a true champion, watch what happens. They start looking at
the screen going We'll wait a minute, how come you have decision criteria rates
below? And we'll say, well, that's because we don't. We don't
think we've fully vetted the decision criteria from the following people's perspective. We don't
really think that your criteria is well defined or you have technical metrics around it
and a true champion and you'll face so we got to figure that one out.
True champion will be like, well, let's go like we got to
go meet Rachel, we got to go meet Brian. You know those kinds
of things. Now on the non deal specific side, because I think there's
this is a two sided point. The other thing you can be doing during
a deal pursuit is look for opportunities to build your relationship with your champion that
have nothing to do with the deal. Right There's like, Hey, Rachel,
I know you're the keep marketing office, or I was thinking there is
an event that I'm aware of coming up. I'm not sure if you're if
you're available, or if you're even know about it, but here's some of
the value associated for someone in your position. Well, I would love to
get you an invite, right Or Hey, Rachel, I've been thinking after
something like this gets implemented, you know, with us or without us,
typically the marketing he's got something they need to do integrated into the business.
I'd like to make sure that you know we have this stable filled with other
cmos who have done this before. I'd like to introduce you to a couple
of them, because they I think you'd get along with them be I think
it would help you think through how do we make sure no matter who we
pick, that we implement it well. So maybe that's a little more deal
specific, but it's not about me, right, It's about you getting the
success. So whether it thought leadership or event network, etc. Those are
some of the things you can do that I think are a little less feal
specific. At the same time, you're pursuing enough. Well, that's some
great tips there, Brian. I think this has been a fruitful conversation,
even though it's such such a big topic and there's only so much we can
do in a short podcast. But I'd love for you to leave us with
some final thoughts. Oh, okay, final thoughts on a Monday, so
my brain is engaged. Is engaging first and foremost. You're not gonna like
this one, but I'm gonna say that anyhow. Okay, you think you
have a champion in your deal, I think you should get in a room
with the right people and let them push and push and push to make sure
you really have a champion. Right, do you have the right person,
Have you really developed them into our champion? And what are we then doing
as a result to really continue to test that relationship. Everybody hasn't send me
to go straight too. I've got a champion, Okay, have you tested
them? Don't tell me about testing them until you've proved to me that you
got the right person. Then you build the relationship. So that's one second
is and I'll say it said it earlier. You've got to make sure that
this relationship is all about them, right, And you know, like like
I was at the wedding one let me said, hey, remember and I
think Chris Rocking is a blank too. Relationships aren't fifty fifty, they're one
hundred to one hundred, right. You're either all in or you're not.
In my opinion, that's not a champion relationship. Champion relationship. We're all
in one hundred or the champion and anything we get back from them is great.
But you can't expect the champion to be one hundred in for you because
they still have a responsibility to their company, right. So you just have
to know that is the relationships a little bit more about them than it is
up And I think that's okay, right, and then last but not lead
and that that that goes to the self orientation thing, right, keep yourself
orientation well, and I think the last but not leads. The other thing
is once you have a champion, once you go you really have a champion,
always show up with purpose. As we mentioned. But the other thing
is don't apologize. Maybe that's a bad way to say it, but what
I mean by that is when you show up with something, just put it
on the table, because you know, once you have that relationship, you
don't have to fight around the edges, like go right in whatever the conversation
needs to be, put it on the table. Don't apologize for that.
It's like be ready, know what you gotta get done, and be direct
about it. Maybe that's a good way to put it. I like it,
And don't check in, No more checking in, all right. Thank
you so much, Brian, Thanks Rachel. It was really fun to talk
to you. Thank you for letting me start my week this play. Oh.
I appreciate having you, and don't forget we have tons of content on
Champions and all the medic components on how to be a great qualifier as a
salesperson on a sender. You can check it out my dot asender dot com.
Thank you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales podcast. At Force Management,
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