00:18:48 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:18:48] S1: Yeah. Definitely. And when it comes to, like, the the price per outcome, is it something that varies depending on the industry and the company, or is it like something that's, like, [00:18:59] S0: one one fits all? No. It's it's gonna be based upon, like, how much volume that you want us to handle. Okay. What's the what's the use case that we're gonna handle? Is it voice? Is it chat? Is it email? You know, which modality are we gonna have the agent handle? There's So a variety of different factors, but at the end of the day, it's pretty clear. Did our agent handle its business? Did it resolve an issue, or did it close a sale? Depends on the use case. And if it did, we get paid. If our agent doesn't handle its business, doesn't resolve that use case, then we don't get paid. And when I say, handle the use case on their own autonomously with no human intervention. If we have to transfer it to a human, then it's free of charge. And oh, by the way, Gene, when we transfer it, we're going tell you why we couldn't resolve that issue, and here's potentially what that human agent should do to resolve that case on the first interaction. Nice. Really cool stuff, man. It's a lot of fun to sell this.
00:18:59 · Reggie Marable, Guillaume Moubeche
[00:18:59] S0: one one fits all? No. It's it's gonna be based upon, like, how much volume that you want us to handle. Okay. What's the what's the use case that we're gonna handle? Is it voice? Is it chat? Is it email? You know, which modality are we gonna have the agent handle? There's So a variety of different factors, but at the end of the day, it's pretty clear. Did our agent handle its business? Did it resolve an issue, or did it close a sale? Depends on the use case. And if it did, we get paid. If our agent doesn't handle its business, doesn't resolve that use case, then we don't get paid. And when I say, handle the use case on their own autonomously with no human intervention. If we have to transfer it to a human, then it's free of charge. And oh, by the way, Gene, when we transfer it, we're going tell you why we couldn't resolve that issue, and here's potentially what that human agent should do to resolve that case on the first interaction. Nice. Really cool stuff, man. It's a lot of fun to sell this. [00:19:58] S1: Yeah. It's... It must be, like, super fun, especially, like, coming from from more traditional, like, software. I think it's it's a lot easier, but you're you're saying that you were focusing on Fortune one thousand. So with with this kind of deals, like, from 500 to multimillion dollars, usually, like, the the sales cycle can be, like, quite long. So can you maybe, like, walk us through how do you find, like, those leads? How do you like close deals? Like, is it mainly outbound, inbound? Like, how exactly the the whole sales machine works? Yeah.
00:20:32 · Reggie Marable
[00:20:32] S0: This is an enterprise driven sales motion. So we have really seasoned, really talented, hardworking, intellectually curious technical sellers. Their job is to go out and generate leads through prospecting. We also do events. We go to conferences. We have customer stories. Our our founders are doing podcasts to kinda help generate, you know, interest and help explain who we are and what we do and the value that we're driving. But this is an enterprise AE driven sales motion. So if you wanna work at Sierra and you're a seller, you have to be down to prospect every single day. So that's that's kinda how we go about generating interest and generating leads. So once you get a lead, then you have a couple of meetings, you do discovery, understand the the environment, the use cases, and then we build a demonstration to to show like, what it would look like if we were to handle those use cases with Sierra, like the art of the possible. And then once the client, kinda sees potentially how this would work, then we move into a proof of concept, and then we execute the proof proof of concept. Those run anywhere from two to four months. And then after that, we execute a long term contract. So from first meeting to signing a long term contract, it's about eight months. Wow. Because we have to do discovery, we have to instill confidence, we have to, create a demonstration to show, you know, to bring the art of the possible to life, and then we have to run the proof of concept. And in the proof of concept, we are held accountable to delivering results. And if we don't deliver results and execute those proof of concepts, we don't have a deal. And gee, I'm I'm really proud to report we have a 90% conversion rate on proof of concept. 90% of the time, if a client goes into a proof of concept with Sierra, they're gonna end up being a long term customer.
00:22:17 · Guillaume Moubeche
[00:22:17] S1: And when it comes to, like, the the the part with sales prospecting, how do each AE do, like, their sales prospecting daily? Like, do they have, like, I don't know, like, a a CRO who basically like a split per industry and each, you know, AE will get a specific industry and a set of leads each month that they need to contact? Or is it like each AE is kind of like full sales cycle and is focusing on the on the entire sales cycle from finding the leads to reaching out to them, etcetera?
00:22:52 · Reggie Marable
[00:22:52] S0: Yeah. So we we don't have like a hunter farmer thing. It's it's it's an AE. Once they get the first lead to long term contract, they are aligned to that engagement for the life. Okay. Their job is not only to get the client to... Into a proof of concept, demonstrate the value, sign a long term contract. It's now how can we take this relationship to the next level? Hey, you wanted us to handle your customer service. How about we start working on some proactive sales use cases? How about we start closing deals for you? You're currently using chat. Let's let's take a look at using our voice solution. We have new features to the platform. We have this cool feature called agent data platform. We're now imbuing these agents with intelligence and memory and context. Let's explore that. So at the end of the day, a seller's responsibility is to become the front door of that client's experience and be the way that their customers are interacting with their brand. So it's not just selling one thing and moving on. It's like how do we build a long term relationship so our clients are happy, they're successful, they're connecting with more of their customers? And you can't do that if you're just... You're very... You know, if it's a transactional thing, come in and close a deal and move on. So hopefully that gives you some sense of how we go about our selling motion. Yeah. Definitely.
00:24:10 · Guillaume Moubeche, Reggie Marable
[00:24:10] S1: I think it's interesting because in some companies, would see that you would have, let's say, like an AE team, and then you would have like the expansion team or like CS team sometimes that handles, you know, like customer expansion. But for you, it's like... Because it's such a long term relationship, you want each AE to basically, like, handle their accounts and also be able to also do the upsell because they're bringing more value on different use cases. Is that correct? [00:24:37] S0: That's exactly correct. So... Which is why when we're hiring for sellers, we look for, like, intellectual curiosity. We look for, creativity. We look for, people that have the the ability and the instincts to make things happen, people that know how to... They can... I can put them in the... In front of a CEO, but they can also go have a great conversation to build a relationship with a project leader. So you've gotta have AEs that are sophisticated, that work hard, that are very curious, And that's how you kind of come in and be a business consultant. And not a sales rep, but like a consultant. Like what can I do to make my client more successful? What can Sierra do to help them improve the way they interact with their with their customers and make, you know, better connections and more intimate relations with their customers. You have to have a you have to have a pretty unique seller to do that, which is why I'm very fortunate that we've