When I engage someone with that kind of expertise or skill set that I don't
have, I should be taking things away from that that allow me to up
level my skill. You're listening to the Audible Ready Podcast, the show that
helps you and your teams sell more faster. We'll feature sales leaders sharing their
best insights on how to create a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue
growth, presented by the team Afforce Management, a leader in B to B
sales effectiveness. Let's get started. Hello and welcome to the Audible Ready Sales
Podcast. I'm Rachel clap Miller. Today we are going to take on an
important topic for all of us, especially if we are struggling this quarter this
year, having a tough go of it, and it's about asking for help.
Brian Walsh joins me today to talk through this. Hi Brian, Hello,
Rachel. I like taking on this topic because I feel like sometimes as
salespeople, we may be hesitant to ask for help. We don't want to
show our weakness, we don't want to show where we might be weak.
So this will be a good conversation today. I would just also add I
just think sometimes we get so caught up in the moment or the day to
day, because you know, there's so much attached to what we do as
sellers, like we've got to bring business over the line, right, so
we get so wrapped up in that that we can forget some of the other
important stuff. It's one of those topics, right, Yes, And it's
important to know how to ask for help and get it from the right people
in your sales organizations. So let's just take this first, Like I'm sitting
here, I'm struggling. I need some help, whether that be on a
deal pipeline, whatever it is. Where do I start? Okay, great
question. I think you always go back first and foremost too, like what
have we already put in place as an organization? So you know, let's
go back to the one thing that most people prop we have in some form
of fashion of their company, which is some sort of documented sales engagement process.
That's not only what do we do internally about how do we engage with
customers? Right? And I would say that's always the first place to go
because somebody put some thought into that and took some time to define by different
sales stages. Hey, here are all the different players inside of our company,
who are typically going to be engaged at one given stage of the customer
journey or another. So for example, you know early stage discovery versus mid
stage solution, architecting and engineering, those kinds of things. So who are
those different roles in those different moments and what roles do those people actually play,
meaning what are they responsible for bringing to the table. That's I think
always the best place to start. And as we know, those sales engagement
processes customer engagement processes depending on our company, can be very detailed, or
they could be not so much and you might not find them to be helpful.
So what do I do if I don't feel good or I can't find
the answers in that engagement process? Help me get my mind right about where
to go for help? Okay, so great second question. And even if
you do have an engagement process, I think this applies, which is you've
got to remind yourself that, Okay, I am the tip of the spear,
right, My job is to do certain things specifically, but also to
lead the entire engagement. Why I may not be leading specific actions are executable
things, I am still the general of the opportunity, right, So if
that's true. For example, I've got responsibility to lead great discovery and expand
the customer's mindset and get more people from the customer involved, help the customers
see the value of getting multiple players into the conversation, understand the pain,
help the customer think about outcomes and metrics that are going to be important for
success, and get people to be willing to move an engagement forward. But
I should also be thinking about, right, well, what are the other
resource versus I have in my company. I don't need a sales engagement process
to tell me that. I can look around right the universe of my organization
say, okay, who are those different folks, what roles do they play?
How do I pull them in? And maybe more importantly, not only
how do I pull them in and what role are they going to play,
but how do I get them prepared to enter the customer conversation in a way
that brings value to that customer and then to the customer overall. Right,
so you know, I've got some product expertise over here, and those folks
should be really great at helping me defind requirements and metrics and talking about how
we do those things and how we do them better than others, and how
because of the way we do them, the customer has a better chance of
getting two outcomes right, those kinds of things. So I think you've got
to be thinking about how do I overlay the different types of expertise we have
in the company at the right time and place and you know, when I
want to get them involved. And I I do think that's kind of the
trickier part to this. Knowing who you've got and what expertise they have and
what roles they can play is typically pretty self evident. But I do think
the art in this is helping think through, Okay, who am I taking
on a first call? Maybe nobody by the way, versus who am I
taking on the fifth or the sixth or the seventh call? And how am
I going to do that? Because I think you've got to think about a
is this the right time and place to bring this resource in based on the
objective we have in the moment, Like first calls are a great example.
Once you're comfortable. Obviously, when you're newer, you're going to probably want
some resources, but once you're comfortable with who your company is and how you're
relevant to your customers, there's a lot of value in going on a first
call alone because you actually can start to use your resources as a negotiation give
get tool right. Rachel is my subject matter expert in this space. Customers
always want to meet her, especially the technical buying audience, because they want
to get into the deep dive conversation. But really I want to hold Rachel
back. I want the customer to earn Rachel's expertise. So and at the
same time, I don't want bringing Rachel to the table to take a conversation
it's supposed to be at about the customer and their business and give the customer
the ability to turn it all into a dog and pony show that we have
to put on right. So I think that's a really important thing. So
that's I think the most important thing to be thinking about here is it's how
do I use the people that I have in a moment that creates more value
and serves the objective that we have in that moment, not just a show
of force. You know, we've got some expertise and some some people in
the company who are really smart. That's like it's almost a wasted opportunity when
you use them like that. Yeah, I loved it when you said that
there's an art to knowing who to ask or who to bring with you on
certain steps in sales process. We've all been in those situations where we've brought
somebody and they're doing the best job that they can and we did it on
a good faith and they've kind of take us down a completely different path on
the call and it's gone completely sideways. So I think the next thing to
remember is that when you ask for help, it really is a learning experience.
When you do it, you should be able to identify what worked and
what did and what you don't want to do again. I like that,
and I'll expand on that because I think you're right there. I have a
responsibility if I'm asking for help to use that help wisely and get something out
of it. And so what I mean by that is you got to be
on the lookout for what am I going to learn from this person when I
put Rachel in front of my customer. What is it that she's doing that
I can start to learn to do by myself. You know, if you
think about that, there's a couple of reasons. One is I'm constantly thinking
about up leveling my own skill. Right. I saw a video yesterday that
I've seen a few times over the years of guys sitting in front of a
college classroom, and he said, listen, the worst advice you're going to
get over the next couple of years is from people who come to this class
and sit in this chair, because a lot of them are going to feed
to the line that says you should follow your passion. And he said,
that's not your job. Your job is to find out something, find something
that you're good at, and then put the time and effort into becoming great
at it. Right, that's when you'll earn the right to sit in a
chair like this. He says a lot more pointedly, and I really like
his point of view, and I think it applies here. When I engage
someone with that kind of expertise or skill set that I don't have, I
should be taking things away from that that allow me to up level my skill.
And that way, one Rachel starts to stop feeling like every time I
engage her, I'm asking her to do my job for me. Right,
that's the first thing. The second thing is Rachel starts to see that I'm
valuable in terms of spending time with because she sees, Oh, when I
spend time with that person, they actually start to do these kinds of things
or try to do these things on their own so that they can constantly bring
me in at another level, a higher level. I don't mean hiring the
customers organization. I mean higher in terms of value and I am setting up
her ability to do that because of how I interact with the client when she's
not in the room. So there's a whole lot going on here, Like
there's learning for me, there's relationship building for me, and those kinds of
things. So that's kind of how I view the tea up of that question
about this being a learning experience. It's a great way to be accountable for
what you're bringing to the table as tip of the arrow. As you said,
I love that be accountable for asking for help, and you want to
ask for help in a good way, Like there's ways to do it that
will benefit you, Right, help me help you? As the old adage,
So how do I help people help me? What tips do you have
here? One be specific in your ask, right, what do I need
from you? And what can I do to make that easier for you?
Right? So that's the first thing. I think the second thing is there's
I think following up on both the front end and the back end is important.
And what I mean by that on the front end is prep right,
preparation. You know, I kind of mentioned that already by saying, tell
them what you need and get them ready, but do the work to get
that person ready and be specific in the ask. And on the other side
of it, I think the back end follow up includes a thank you.
I know that sounds almost doesn't maybe it doesn't need to be said, but
I think it's important. There's a thank there's a here's what I've learned from
that interaction, right, and here's what I'm going to do with that,
or here's what I'm going to do next. So it identifies that's the wrong
where I'll go with it. It identifies to that person that you just engaged
with, that you saw value in their time right. And again, I'm
trying to build a relationship with you that says when I engage with you,
I'm engaging with you for the right reasons, and I'm also learning from that.
I think you should be asking for feedback, Rachel. I really appreciate
you doing that. I appreciate you sending that email. I appreciate you making
that call. The next time I do that, i'd like to run point
on that, and if you're available, i'd like you to either attend or
help me prepare or give me you know, so I can get some feedback
on the other side. And then I think, last, but not least,
maybe it doesn't need to be said, but acknowledge was the word I
was looking for, So now we can say acknowledge here. I think you've
got to acknowledge that you have got to look for people who are worth your
time right when you're gonna ask for help. You got to find people with
two things. They've got to have the best skill, but they also have
to have the best will or attitude. Yeah, right, because, as
someone once said, you are a product of the people you spend the most
amount of time with, So spend time with people who are worth spending time
with. That's dead on. I almost I was going to ask you for
a bottom line, Brian. That might be your bottom line, but I'm
sure you have some other final thoughts you'd like to leave the listeners with,
Shay, Well, yeah, I think you're right. That's a big final
thought a couple of other things. I think there's nothing wrong with raising your
hand early, right and saying, hey, I'm thinking about or I'm dealing
with this opportunity. Here's how I'm looking at it. I'd really love someone
with some expertise and skill to take a look at it and help me think
through. Am I missing anything? Maybe there's something that a strengthened this opportunity
that I'm not even realizing or seeing, or a lever I could be pulling
that I'm not pulling. You know how, I lights to talk about the
trees versus the forest. I think the further we get into an opportunity,
the closer we get to it as account exacts. For example, we have
a tendency to start looking at that opportunity as a single tree and getting somebody
to help pull us back so that we can see the greater conversation or see
the forest. I think is a really good idea. I mean, maybe
said you know last Ali, it is we rarely if ever went alone.
Why would you lose alone? Right? Because if you get help early and
on, then you have a higher likelihood of winning, right, or at
least understanding. Wait a minute, maybe we don't even belong in this opportunity
because you've got another set of rise, another point of view. So that's
kind of my take on the wrap up. I love it. Thank you
Brian Walsh, thank you Rachel, and thank you to all of you for
joining us today. Ask for help, ask early, ask often, don't
lose Alan, and thank you for listening to the Audible Ready Sales podcast.
At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into elite teams. Are
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