Inside The Pipeline: B2B Sales and GTM
00:25:27 · Nick Casale, Tris Tusa
[00:25:27] S1: And so I see companies make that mistake often and then, like, the, you know, the obvious, like, companies will try to just slop canon content on their site. That already doesn't work, and it's gonna keep not working. So I think that's my advice is, like, I would... I think don't half ass it if you're gonna do it. But I... I'm also, like, it it is hard to do correctly, and I think I think not doing it is better than half assing it is my advice, honestly. [00:25:52] S0: That's so interesting. VP of sales at AirOps coming on to say, don't don't do it. Obviously, given the context, I know what you're saying. And let's talk a bit about, like, your team here. Mhmm. What do you look for when you're hiring an SDR? What do you look for when you're hiring an AE? How do you know if you've got someone who's good? [00:26:11] S1: My cliche answer is... Which which I tell candidates when they ask is always attitude and aptitude. I can sort of bucket everything I'm looking for into one of those two categories. And then I'm looking for... STR is is an interesting one because there's less for them to... There's often less to go off Yeah. If it's a first job. Right? And I'm I'm a big fan of hiring SDRs out of college because I was hired out of college, and I was... Like, I loved that job. Yeah. I loved being an SDR at Talkdesk. And then I was, like, I was so excited to become an AE. And I wanted to be an AE so badly. I would, like, sit on the calls and, like, take notes for the AEs. [00:26:50] S0: Really?
00:26:50 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:26:50] S0: Really? [00:26:52] S1: So I remember how much joy and excitement I had for that job and, like Yeah. The idea of being able to, like, pull kids that are that chomping at the bit for me is is exciting. But for what I say to SDRs is I say, like, what's one thing that you're passionate about or that you love? And, like, convince me to love it too. Right? And I'm looking for... I don't necessarily care if if if they're, like, overly persuasive, but I'm looking for the spark of, like, do you give a shit? Do I see, like... You know, do you get that twinkle in your eye when you talk about something? Right? Because even if you're not that persuasive with your language, it becomes infectious if they're... If they really do. Like, the best answer I got was bird watching. Really? Once. Shout out shout out Gianna. Gianna sold me on bird watching. [00:27:33] S0: And is Gianna now working in? [00:27:35] S1: Oh, yeah. Gianna's great. [00:27:37] S0: What what would your thing be? [00:27:39] S1: I I mean [00:27:39] S0: What gives you a twinkle in your eye? [00:27:41] S1: I could go on... I could either do snowboarding. I love snowboarding. My my super weird answer would be, I love the series Red Rising. Have you read Red Rising? [00:27:51] S0: I've heard I've heard of it. [00:27:52] S1: I'm I'm jealous of you that you get to read it. [00:27:54] S0: Okay. [00:27:55] S1: It's that good. [00:27:56] S0: I love that. Doing book recommendations now as well. [00:27:58] S1: Oh, yeah. Make all [00:27:59] S0: my friends read it. What's the best sales advice that you've ever been given?
00:27:59 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:27:59] S0: my friends read it. What's the best sales advice that you've ever been given? [00:28:05] S1: So I'll I'll I'll give a... One that sticks... I don't know if it's the best, but but what came to mind that I think is worth sharing is from a legendary sales trainer who passed away a couple years ago. So I'll give a shout out to Skip Miller, r I p Skip. And he would say he had all these great sayings [00:28:22] S0: Mhmm. [00:28:22] S1: For different just, like, normal things, but he he'd have to... You know, it's room of 50, a 100,000 sales reps. He trained the team at Tableau Yeah. Famously from kind of zero up to the acquisition. And he would say it's not about the dog. Okay. Which was his proxy for it's not about, like, your product. Right? Rep... Like, reps love to talk about their product. And so he would say, it's not about the dog. Like, that... It was just his funny saying for it. And if you would... When you would do it... When you're doing a a mock pitch, he would genuinely bark at you if you started talking about your product too much. And you would give a pitch, and then he would say sort of in his very funny animated way, he'd be like, that's a good sentence, but it's a little woofy, Nick. [00:29:06] S0: Yeah. Yeah. [00:29:06] S1: Yeah. Yeah. Kinda woofing at me, and I couldn't I couldn't really hear you because you're barking. [00:29:10] S0: Yeah.
00:29:10 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:29:10] S0: Yeah. [00:29:10] S1: And it's just always stuck with me and me... My my... One of my directors here, Travis, was a sales leader with me at at at Sendoso too, and We always like, that's sort of our inside joke now. If you have a chance, we bring that back of [00:29:25] S0: That's great. [00:29:26] S1: As a shout out. [00:29:26] S0: And so really what people should be focusing on actually is the business that they're talking to and the potential problem that
00:29:34 · Nick Casale, Tris Tusa
[00:29:34] S1: they're solving. I mean, like, it... I do think it's it's a... It's it's very... It's standard advice. Right? It's cliche, but, like, you really can't drive home. And this changes for you the minute you first buy software. Like, at whatever point that is for you in your career, you realize that you've spent so many hours wasted demoing your product. Like, however much time you demo and are talking about your own product in a sales cycle is just like... It's... I promise you it's too much. Like, they just... The amount people care is so dramatically smaller than you think. And, yes, there will be... You know, if it's a a huge buying committee, there may be that one person who really does care and thinks it's super, super cool. But the idea that that this whole group of people want to see your product over and over and over again is madness. See, I promise you it's madness. Like, they wanna talk about themselves and their products, and they wanna hear your stories about other people like them and how how they worked with you and what their life was like and what it's like now. They don't want to hear that the button goes to this button, which plugs into a third button, which will plug into all their existing buttons. It's just so immaterial, and I think especially now, it's as important as ever to remember that. It's more important than it's ever been. I'll I'll rephrase. Because software is not your moat anymore. And I think if you think it is, it's that... Then that's going away. [00:30:54] S0: Completely agree with this.
00:30:54 · Tris Tusa, Nick Casale
[00:30:54] S0: Completely agree with this. [00:30:55] S1: It's like, features are very easy to build. Very, very easy to build now. We see, like, you know, product release cycles are are daily. Mhmm. And so the more that you're selling on your feature. Right? [00:31:08] S0: So it's about distribution. It's about building trust. [00:31:11] S1: It's about distribution. It's about non feature based differentiation for sure. Those And are very different things. It's like, what are you solving for? Right? I think, you know, if you're building a business, you do have to think about unique distribution and what you are... What is... What encompasses... Like, what are you delivering as the experience in addition that's in addition to the product? And I I think what people sometimes get mistaken is they assume that it has to be, like, very expensive, would be, like, a a a bad way of phrasing it. I'll I'll give you a really good example, which Yeah. Maybe carries, maybe doesn't, but, like, iPhone, I think, is a phenomenal example. Like, I think Steve Jobs... I think the box of the iPhone is like one of the most brilliant pieces of the whole thing. Like, do do you remember like the first Apple products you bought? [00:31:57] S0: I remember getting an iPhone... I probably went into the iPhone four. I think I was on a BlackBerry before [00:32:03] S1: Okay. [00:32:03] S0: Before then. But I remember the iPhone three g and the iPhone two. [00:32:07] S1: I bet you the first iPhone you got, you kept the box Yeah. For some amount of time.