Speaker 1: Pipeline is more than an activity, it's a strategy. So
Speaker 1: it's not an event, that's a process, and you want
Speaker 1: to be prepared. You want to be purposeful, and you
Speaker 1: want to be ready to qualify and disqualify.
Speaker 2: You're listening to the Audible Ready podcast. The show that
Speaker 2: helps you and your teams sell more Faster. Will feature
Speaker 2: sales leaders sharing their best insights on how to create
Speaker 2: a sales engine that helps you fuel repeatable revenue growth.
Speaker 2: Presented by the team at Force Management, a leader in
Speaker 2: B to B sales effectiveness. Let's get started.
Speaker 3: Hello and welcome to the Audible Ready Sales Podcast. I'm
Speaker 3: Rachel clap Miller. Today we are diving into one of
Speaker 3: the most critical things that you can do as a
Speaker 3: sales rep, and that is how to build pipeline. We
Speaker 3: know we need pipeline. We talk about it a lot
Speaker 3: here on the podcast. Without enough opportunities, right, you're scrambling.
Speaker 3: It creates a whole of problems. But today we want
Speaker 3: to talk about building pipeline with purpose. And you want
Speaker 3: to avoid just having a bunch of names installed deals.
Speaker 3: If you have that, you really don't have great pipeline.
Speaker 3: You're just busy. So John Kaplan joining me today. Hi John, Rachel,
Speaker 3: how are you good?
Speaker 1: Good.
Speaker 3: Let's just start with some of your opening thoughts about pipeline.
Speaker 1: John, Well, this is always an interesting topic. I'm just
Speaker 1: going to go beyond that. Might hit it again later
Speaker 1: in this but you know, this is not an option.
Speaker 1: The basic truth is pipeline is not just a number.
Speaker 1: It's got to be a strategy. And if you're chasing
Speaker 1: a target number the number of leads per week, per months,
Speaker 1: that's all great, that's what we should be doing. But
Speaker 1: volume alone is not going to get you to the
Speaker 1: promised land. You need to have a you know, like
Speaker 1: a repeatable system to qualify opportunities against clear what we
Speaker 1: call value framework.
Speaker 3: Right, all pipeline is not created equal. What are some
Speaker 3: mistakes you've seen common mistakes you see reps make when
Speaker 3: they're generating pipeline that may hurt their chances of actually
Speaker 3: making their quota.
Speaker 1: I think this is a really good question because what
Speaker 1: I see is that many times people confuse activity with progress,
Speaker 1: and so if you're filling the pipeline with the wrong
Speaker 1: types of opportunities, then you're going to be in a
Speaker 1: big jam. And we should talk about that and then
Speaker 1: also in your reach out, if you're too generic in
Speaker 1: your reach out, you don't get any traction. You're not
Speaker 1: adding anything at the top of funnel because nobody's responding.
Speaker 1: So I think these are kind of three major problems.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that word generic here because you know,
Speaker 3: when you're too generic. We see it in marketing content
Speaker 3: all the time. Right, if you're too generic, you're not
Speaker 3: really saying anything, right for everything to ever, everybody or nothing.
Speaker 3: So let's talk about let's shift into how you ensure
Speaker 3: as a rep you aren't falling into those traps. If
Speaker 3: you don't have enough, you have to ask yourself the
Speaker 3: who right are you targeting the right companies?
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, and I think this is a joint responsibility.
Speaker 1: You've heard me talk about this before, where I say companies, Oh,
Speaker 1: the go to market function some basic truths. One of
Speaker 1: the basic truths is what is the ideal customer profile?
Speaker 1: Who are we targeting? And inside of that profile, what
Speaker 1: is the persona? And underneath that persona we call it
Speaker 1: what are the essential questions of value? What problems do
Speaker 1: I solve for that customer, that persona, that ideal customer profile?
Speaker 1: What problems do I solve number two, how specifically do
Speaker 1: I solve those? Number three? How do I solve them
Speaker 1: differently or better than anybody else? And number four or
Speaker 1: where have I done it before? Proof points, case studies,
Speaker 1: testimonials of where we've solved those problems. For me, that's
Speaker 1: the beginning, and it's a combination. If you're listening to
Speaker 1: this right now and you don't have the answers to
Speaker 1: what I just said, you don't know what your ideal
Speaker 1: customer profile is, you don't know who you're targeting, You
Speaker 1: don't know how to qualify or disqualify those based upon
Speaker 1: an ideal customer profile. You don't have the answers to
Speaker 1: the essential questions. You've got to go back to your
Speaker 1: company and say, fundamentally, I need help with this. And companies,
Speaker 1: if you're listening and you're not providing, or if you're
Speaker 1: a leader listening to this and you're not providing your
Speaker 1: go to my market organization with an aligned answer to
Speaker 1: these four essential questions, then you are going to be
Speaker 1: in big, big trouble with not only your pipeline, but
Speaker 1: just basic execution.
Speaker 3: Right they provide the foundation for a lot of sales
Speaker 3: execution and the motion to make all the go in
Speaker 3: the right direction. If you look at who you're targeting
Speaker 3: and you're like, well, this is ideal customer profile, this
Speaker 3: hits it. Another place to look at is that point
Speaker 3: you make about solving the problem?
Speaker 1: Yeah? For me, it's simply does this account have a
Speaker 1: big enough business problem that I can solve? So not
Speaker 1: only is it a targeted account, but does it have
Speaker 1: the business problem? And do they realize that they have
Speaker 1: the business problem that I can solve. Can I articulate
Speaker 1: that problem in terms that they're going to care about
Speaker 1: in things like cost and revenue and risk and strategic priorities,
Speaker 1: So I can use their words and their experiences to
Speaker 1: be able to build the case that this is a
Speaker 1: problem that I potentially have the ability to solve that's
Speaker 1: big enough for them to have urgency, critical enough for
Speaker 1: them to have urgency. And if you don't know the answer,
Speaker 1: it's not pipe line. It's a guessing game. And I
Speaker 1: always like to say when I pick up the phone morning,
Speaker 1: I wake up in the morning, I have this written
Speaker 1: on my notes, I have it on plaques in my office.
Speaker 1: No business issue, No business If you are not waking
Speaker 1: up in the morning and saying I need to attach
Speaker 1: myself to the biggest business issue facing these customers. You
Speaker 1: are at risk of just going through activities and being very,
Speaker 1: very frustrated because you're not going to hit the mark
Speaker 1: and you're not going to be building any qualified pipeline.
Speaker 3: Yeah, looking at the problem you're solving. If you take
Speaker 3: it a step beyond that, it's are you making sure
Speaker 3: you're solving the right problem? But it's also are you
Speaker 3: articulating what you do in the right way? Right?
Speaker 1: We say it all the time.
Speaker 3: You need to make sure that you're focused on the outcome,
Speaker 3: increasing revenue, decreasing costs, mitigating risks, and you're not focused
Speaker 3: on those features and functions. We've been saying this for years, right,
Speaker 3: but right now this is a trap that a lot
Speaker 3: of these AI companies are.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's fundamental. I mean, if you're going
Speaker 1: to talk about the focus on value, it has always
Speaker 1: been about connecting technical requirements to business outcomes and making
Speaker 1: sure that as a seller that I do that from
Speaker 1: the customer's point of view, using their words, their experiences,
Speaker 1: with their pain, you know, of not solving these problems.
Speaker 1: That's the basis of what we're talking about. Come to
Speaker 1: those conversations with only features and functions, and you are
Speaker 1: going to fall into a trap that I mean the
Speaker 1: majority of people. We talk about seller deficit disorder all
Speaker 1: the time, and what that means is when we get
Speaker 1: people on the phone and we try to get them engaged,
Speaker 1: when we're trying to generate pipeline reach out to them,
Speaker 1: and social media reach out to them and emails, what
Speaker 1: have you, If we are not making ourselves relevant by
Speaker 1: understanding from an outside end point of view the problems
Speaker 1: they're experiencing that we're relevant for, and then, as you said,
Speaker 1: being audible ready to articulate how specifically we have the
Speaker 1: ability to help them with those problems, how to help
Speaker 1: them differently or better than others out there, and then
Speaker 1: have examples of where we've done it before. This is
Speaker 1: not only understanding that customers have problems, but being audible
Speaker 1: ready to be able to talk about how you solve them.
Speaker 3: That's it, as you talk about it, right, it may
Speaker 3: be really clear how you're going to solve the problems,
Speaker 3: because that's what you do for a living, right. You
Speaker 3: see these issues so all the time, but it might
Speaker 3: not be clear for them. So you need to make
Speaker 3: sure that they are understanding that and making the link
Speaker 3: use their words not yours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to make them stand in their own
Speaker 1: I mean this is a great skill, Rachel, that you know,
Speaker 1: it's an art and a skill, right, it'st in a
Speaker 1: science And basically you have to get the customer to
Speaker 1: stand in their moment of pain. First of all, you
Speaker 1: have to have a high confidence that there's a high
Speaker 1: probability that they have this pain. And then you have
Speaker 1: to have discovery skills which are good enough to be
Speaker 1: able to get a customer to stand in that moment
Speaker 1: of pain by you asking questions that allows them to
Speaker 1: go there safely, and then for them to be safely
Speaker 1: explaining those pains, and then for you to be relevant
Speaker 1: to it. So I didn't want to skip over that
Speaker 1: because there's a lot of art and skill, but it's
Speaker 1: the basics of discovery. These are basics that we have
Speaker 1: to get mastery level on.
Speaker 3: And the other foundational methodology that you can use here
Speaker 3: is medic Right, So let's talk about a little bit
Speaker 3: about medic as it relates to pipeline and how it
Speaker 3: can help you with qualification, particularly early in the sales process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a great point. I mean you should use
Speaker 1: MEDIC to qualify and disqualify quickly. You don't want to
Speaker 1: waste your TI, you don't want to waste the customer's time.
Speaker 1: And all of that has to do with what's going
Speaker 1: on at the customer level, who's involved politically, what types
Speaker 1: of problems are you trying to solve, how big are
Speaker 1: those problems, what's the decision criteria. All of that is
Speaker 1: a great tie in to the greatest qualification attributes and
Speaker 1: the history of sales, which is MEDIC or medpick. You
Speaker 1: want to be able to use your champion You want
Speaker 1: to be able to use your champions early. You want
Speaker 1: to be able to use qualification to research potential champions
Speaker 1: early to qualify them in and out, so as fast
Speaker 1: as you can connect to the pain points in a
Speaker 1: way that will help you understand how you can influence
Speaker 1: the decision criteria with your differentiation. It's like, look for me,
Speaker 1: when I look at I'm having conversations with potential customers,
Speaker 1: I'm using a couple of top level qualification things. Can
Speaker 1: I attach myself to the biggest business issue facing this
Speaker 1: customer and can I influence the decision criteria the customer's
Speaker 1: decision criteria. Can I influence it with my differentiation which
Speaker 1: makes it not only great for the customer in the
Speaker 1: customer's words, but also great for us. Those are two
Speaker 1: things in qualification that I'm looking to do every single day,
Speaker 1: every single conversation, every single pipeline generation activity, strategy, event,
Speaker 1: phone call, everything I'm doing, I have those two main
Speaker 1: things in my mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. There's a lot at work through here.
Speaker 3: But if you're struggling with pipeline, or if you feel
Speaker 3: like you have enough and it's not closing, this conversation
Speaker 3: should give you some things to look at. If you
Speaker 3: don't have enough pipeline, work back from what you want
Speaker 3: right and then work back to those essential questions ideal
Speaker 3: customer profile. And if you need help, I would say
Speaker 3: ask for it. And I know you have a great
Speaker 3: bottom line to wrap us up with here today, John.
Speaker 1: I think that you started it with one of them.
Speaker 1: You started it with like, pipeline is more than an activity,
Speaker 1: it's a strategy, So it's not an event, it's a process.
Speaker 1: And you want to be prepared, you want to be purposeful,
Speaker 1: and you want to be ready to qualify and disqualify
Speaker 1: early in pipeline generation. For me, it's a skill and
Speaker 1: a mindset that every capitalize, every seller should own, regardless
Speaker 1: of what your company's lead generation processes are. Rachel, I
Speaker 1: think you know this. I can't stand hearing from reps.
Speaker 1: I need more leads. If I just could get more leads,
Speaker 1: I could do X, Y, and Z. Now. I understand
Speaker 1: companies are set up differently on how leads come in,
Speaker 1: but I'm telling you, long after I'm gone, the excuse
Speaker 1: Department's going to be closed. You always are going to
Speaker 1: have to participate in your own rescue. I don't care
Speaker 1: if we have the greatest lead generation mechanics on the planet,
Speaker 1: having an ICP, having a conviction to attach to the
Speaker 1: biggest business issues facing that ICP, articulating how you do
Speaker 1: that they're solved their problems, how you do it differently
Speaker 1: or better than anybody else, and where you've done it before.
Speaker 1: Those who participate in their own rescue on these topics,
Speaker 1: regardless of where the leads come from, are always going
Speaker 1: to be the most elite performers.
Speaker 3: That's it. Thank you, John.
Speaker 1: Kaplan, you got it, Go get them.
Speaker 3: Thank you to all of you for listening to the
Speaker 3: Audible Ready Sales Podcast.
Speaker 4: At Force Management, we're focused on transforming sales organizations into
Speaker 4: elite teams. Our proven methodologies deliver programs that build company
Speaker 4: alignment and fuel repeatable revenue growth. Give your teams the
Speaker 4: ability to execute the growth strategy at the point of sale.
Speaker 4: Our strength is our experience. The proof is in our results.
Speaker 4: Let's get started. Visit us at forestmanagement dot com.
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