Nathan Clark is a sales enabler, working at the crossroads of tech and capability. Nathan has a long career in helping B2B salespeople to be more effective in their roles.
Having worked at LinkedIn, RogenSi as well as running his own side-hustle as a deal coach, Nathan has plenty of experience in what makes a deal more likely to be successful.
Nathan shares his 7 "Cs" strategy to more effective selling.
The 7 Sea’s are:
We dig deep into these 7 areas as well as sharing some tips to help you make sure you hit these 7 as you move through your deal’s timeline.
Nathan Clark - LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathancjclark/
Website:
www.nathanclark.net
Twitter
@nathanClark_
Mark McInnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mcinnes/
Website/ Newsletter
www.markmc.co
Catch all versions of me here.
https://linktr.ee/markmcinnes
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VIP sales mailer
Tactical Pipeline Growth
BOSS Podcast
1 on 1 Consulting
Nathan Clark is a sales enabler, working at the crossroads of tech and capability. Nathan has a long career in helping B2B salespeople to be more effective in their roles.
Having worked at LinkedIn, RogenSi as well as running his own side-hustle as a deal coach, Nathan has plenty of experience in what makes a deal more likely to be successful.
Nathan shares his 7 "Cs" strategy to more effective selling.
The 7 Sea’s are:
We dig deep into these 7 areas as well as sharing some tips to help you make sure you hit these 7 as you move through your deal’s timeline.
Nathan Clark - LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathancjclark/
Website:
www.nathanclark.net
Twitter
@nathanClark_
Mark McInnes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-mcinnes/
Website/ Newsletter
www.markmc.co
Catch all versions of me here.
https://linktr.ee/markmcinnes
LinkedIn profile
VIP sales mailer
Tactical Pipeline Growth
BOSS Podcast
1 on 1 Consulting
Nathan Clark, welcome to the BOSS podcast.
nathan-clark:Thanks Mark. Excited to be here finally.
mark_mcinnes:Hey. Yeah. And I'm very pleased to have you on like, oh, I'm actually really excited today for two reasons. One, I know you're going to bring the heat. We've got some great things to talk about. and secondly, I've got a brand new microphone, so I've been struggling with microphones for it. Over a year. So I'm really keen to get some high quality audio out to the listener. So I'm, hopefully this is going to turn the corner for those struggling listeners that have stuck with that dodgy audio. Thank you. And for new listeners while they were don't know what they're missing, but back to number one today, we're going to bring the heat today. We're going to be talking about your seven CS and that's the letter C for Charlie? Not the seven oceans, right?
nathan-clark:correct.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah.
nathan-clark:of a play on words.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah, very clever play on words. I love that. So Nathan, you're a sales enablement professional I'm currently working at or four up guard as an enabling sales enable them and helping sellers to be better. Close more deals and engage with more prospects, I guess. Is that right?
nathan-clark:yeah, that's a really accurate kind of representation. Yeah. Well done.
mark_mcinnes:Previously you were with LinkedIn and yeah, of course that's where you and I, I think initially met and you've also worked with Rojan, Sri, which I think is a sales and leadership training consultancy. Is that right?
nathan-clark:Yeah, Virgin is an interesting one, been around for a really long time and a bit of trivia for you. they actually worked with the AOC to write the winning bid for the Sydney Olympic games. So lots of pedigree in sales capability, leadership development.
mark_mcinnes:Lovely. That's pretty cool. That's a good gig. but mostly, and you've also got a side hustle as a sales enablement consultant. So with all of that history, it seems like you're the perfect fit for the boss podcast. I can't wait to hear. You know, share some of your stuff today. So before we get into the seven CS, tell us a little bit about Nathan and Nathan sales journey and maybe even what's happening in
nathan-clark:yeah, sure. For sure. I can definitely feel it in kind of both of those things. I guess the, the short version of the story is this I've kind of just gone in and out of technology. And then kind of learning and development and consulting. So I think they felt disparate once upon a time. And now they've kind of come together, which is a nice thing. So kind of started with apple kind of career really started with apple introducing the Australian market to apple retail. And I very quickly found myself running all the new employee training for the Sydney and then kind of broader Australia market at some point. So that was really around company culture, communication skills, and some kind of really basic sales training in reality, at the end, it's kind of retail based. but that's, that's where it kind of lit the fire, I guess. And so I was kind of. Selling and then teaching which is great. Eventually kind of jumped, shipped to Samsung, did a similar thing, a Virta sales methodology with someone else or a sales process. And then we, we had someone else go and hire all those salespeople. We went and trained them and got them up to speed and then found myself at a little consulting company, doing training and development for young professionals, mostly in like banks and mining and government. and that was really exciting because. Chicano changed. My life started traveling the world and running training for these really smart people. And then came full circle. you know, kind of came full circle back to back to LinkedIn in a customer success function. but of course for that particular product, we were selling a sales product to sales people. it's they had to be really good at it. Right. So, you know, this is the best test selling to salespeople. and then, you know, along the way, Found that I could you know, maybe engage with some clients personally wanted to add a little bit more value and keep, keep sharp. So founded a little consultancy in reality. It's kind of I think made me better in my role, if anything, I overcompensate in my full-time job. So no one ever has questions of whether, you know, I'm letting the ball drop there. But also I think that cross section of experience I get to import into the company I'm working for. So at the moment, what's nice is. I've simplified, simplified my consulting offering. I'm just working on deal coaching which aligns really nicely to the work I do with God. And God's a cybersecurity company or an all-in-one platform for third party risk and attack management. and so we're growing really fast. Cybersecurity is a really fast-growing industry and I'm helping that company kind of scale our sales team and build some, some knowledge, some process and some skills in the meantime. So that's the story.
mark_mcinnes:Pretty cool. Well, quick questions that came out of that point apple to Samsung that's a bit locked down from Coke to Pepsi. Isn't it like? That's that would have been interesting.
nathan-clark:is, is I, I joke. But there was, there were a few defectors and kind of my joke there is that, you know, they said, Hey, come and join us. And it was a bit like the dark side. I was like, absolutely not. And then they said, we'll pay you this much. And I said, okay. in reality, it's just a really great opportunity. So, you know, got to see both sides.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah, of course, of course. And, and the second thing is a more of a, I guess, more of a statement than a question, but selling the sales people, I think salespeople is stuck on sometimes, you know, like we just, w we, we were so optimistic as a rule that, you know, typically someone says, you know, this is the change that you could have. You're like, oh yeah, let's, let's do that. You
nathan-clark:it on.
mark_mcinnes:Yay. Yeah. You know what I mean?
nathan-clark:until, until they're evaluating you for, like, if you're selling at Virgin was selling sales training. Right. So like, well you're on, you're being tested from the first prospecting email, you know,
mark_mcinnes:Yeah that way, but yeah, that's, that's very true. That's very true. I'm very conscious of that and often stuff it up. So so they got certain, I think really keen to get into this seven CS. Let us see. and of course I found this on your, this was a pin tweet to your Twitter account. So so straight away listeners, you know, I've been banging on about Twitter now for a little while. If, if, if you're not on money, Twitter, Get across there, Nathan, what's your handle on Twitter? How can people follow you
nathan-clark:Nathan Clark underscore. So N a T H a N C L a R K. Underscore.
mark_mcinnes:So really easy to find. And this was, this was your pin tweet on on Twitter. So that's how I found that. So do you want to, how did this develop? What is it like? Give us some, give us a lot of damn who.
nathan-clark:Yeah, sure. So a couple of things, how did it come about? one, if you think about like, you know, this is a bad analogy, cause I actually don't follow sport that much, but if you think about your favorite sports team there's probably a game, maybe a really important one, but there's definitely a game you've watched and you know, your team lost because they got, they just got the basics wrong. Right. Like, you know, they're in there. They're really good. They've got all these amazing skills and they just kind of got the basics wrong. They didn't have the discipline. and I think that kind of happens in sales too. W w we kind of get so smart that we forget to be good sometimes. And so, you know, teams are often overwhelmed with activity and I think there's just a good, good kind of circuit breaker. So the way this came about is I identified that, you know, There's kind of these two things existing at one time, one is old deals are really different and kind of all deals are the same, right? There's this kind of underlying thing where we still need to shepherd, you know, our prospect through this certain experience. And they're going to have these moments in their head where they're going to decide, Okay. this is the right solution for me. And that stuffs a lot of that stuff's kind of is constant. And that's what we're talking about today in this. The process stuff around, you know, we quoted this time and here's how we use this tool. And these are our stages, of course, that different, the industry is different, the bias, different. I get all of that. So this was a way to kind of give salespeople a map while the, amongst their pipeline, which, you know, if you're managing your pipeline as a rep, just inside the CRM, I think it's easy to get a bit lost in the, in the process rather than the real journey that we should be taking a prospect on. And this is hopefully a bit of a navigator for that.
mark_mcinnes:Okay. Cool. Okay. Let's let's jump in.
nathan-clark:All right, kick it off. So seven seas maybe it's best to kind of walk through those seven high level and then we can kind of come back around and dive into them. What do you think?
mark_mcinnes:Yep. That
nathan-clark:Cool. So seven seas. First one is connection, right. And when you've built connection with your, with your prospect, your client it kind of gives you the license to build or generate consideration from them around what you actually have to offer. Now, if you've built that consideration so that, you know, they've found some connection with you. The now considering offering it's your opportunity now to make sure there's clarity in what you actually have to sell, right? Clarity in what they're looking for and what you have to sell. And only once you've created that clarity, do they even have any chance of building some confidence that you're the right person to solve that and that this might be able to, you know, get them to the. The goal that they're looking to get, as we all know, almost every deal. Now there's more than one person in the buying process, certainly in a B2B context. and this is really what this is for. And so when we built some confidence with there, we really need to find consensus. And I think mark, we might actually, you know, when we get there, this might be, we might kind of circle around this a little bit. Cause I'm finding this is a big one at the moment. and only once we've created that consensus, can we then get to commercials? and this is, you know, pressing right more than anything and how, how we could structure the deal. you know, we pressing competitively, are we getting the right quote? if we've done all of that, right. My expectation is that seventh C there to kind of conquer his commitment. And once you've got the commitment you know, the, the bonus one, we talk about seven days, the bonus one is hopefully is commissioned, right? So you're at the other end, they've got commitment and bought it and you know, you're going to
mark_mcinnes:I like that one. Yeah. Good stuff.
nathan-clark:that's the bonus one. So that they're the seven, I'm certainly happy to walk through them. show it probably spent a couple of questions that we can jump
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. Okay. So you know what this looks like on first look, it looks like it's the 82 20, the Pareto principle for, for selling, you know, like if you've got these seven slash eight, if you could include commission sorted out, you know, then, you know, 80% of the deal is going to be in the 20% of the tactics, almost 20% of this, you know, like you've got these stalled, you're probably going to be ahead of the curve and a lot of stuff. So this looks like a pretty good framework. So and I'm assuming that they operate in this order, right?
nathan-clark:Yeah, they do. It's, it's quite linear. I think there's, it's worth saying, you know, experienced reps are going to do a lot of these from a place of kind of unconscious competence. I think that's fine. And there are some things that happen a little bit in parallel, but to maybe make the point around why this is linear. If you're trying to for example, put pricing in front of someone and, you know, be really competitive with that. And you haven't even gotten their consensus from the people around that, that buying circle that they're even, you know, the you're even the leading alpha, it doesn't matter what you put in front of them. right? And if you're trying to build that consensus, right. If that's the job you're doing in that moment, Hey, let's bring in the additional C-level person. You're bringing your CEO, CFO, for example, or someone else on your team. And they actually don't, aren't even clear. They haven't got that clarity around what you're even offering. It's just not going to work. And so it, it is kind of this unfolding progression. This is evolving goals as your deal progresses.
mark_mcinnes:Yep. Love that. And I just want to jump in there because this is something I'm seeing a lot people and just jumping to proposals and pricing way too fast. And. You know, of course what happens is you get ghosted, right? So, you know, if you've given your proposal or your quote or whatever it is, like if you've shown them the money before you've done any kind of full discovery or work your way through that buying process, he'd just leaving yourself to be left out in the open with, and no one's going to respond because your prospects you've got exactly what they want. Right. They've got the spec and they've got the price. They don't need to engage with you anymore. and if you give that price too early, It's, you know, it's a really big mistake. So we have, what would, I'm not calling that out. So yeah, let's get into like a couple of lines or, you know, a minute or so on each piece, but what have we got the first up is
nathan-clark:let's dive into connection, Yeah. Let's, let's dive into it. So look, w without like, kind of you know, beating it too much, hopefully this is like the clearest one for everyone, but I think is possibly the most important one. And this is just realistically building rapport, demonstrating some professional intimacy. So if anyone that is listening to this that might know me, I've been talking about this for lots of, lots of time. David maced, us trust equation, you know, trust equals credibility plus reliability. Plus intimacy. right? And so this is, you know, can I build connection from the get-go? Can I do my recon work in The background on LinkedIn and Twitter and wherever else and annual report, can I get to know this person a little bit show up in that first interaction and you know, reduce the gap between where I am and where they are. And I kind of philosophically, right? It's like kind of an abstract idea, but can I get closer to them and build that rapport so that. It gives me the license to have the conversation we really need to have, which is them probably telling us stuff that they might not tell, you know, the next sales person. Right. I want to get more information from them so that I can really craft the right story.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah, I shouldn't use the key, like that's exactly right. And that's why we talk so much about, you know, one mouth and two, two years, like the more information you've got, the better, you're going to be able to position your offer. So I love that. David Meister book, it's a hard read, but it's worth it. It's
nathan-clark:Yeah, it's very academic,
mark_mcinnes:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
nathan-clark:but they do the research. That's why it's there. and you know, like it is one of those things. I think it is important to really underscore that many times, you know, you hit something like, you know, go and build trust with your prospect. And the reality is you can't conscious. All right, I'm going to go and do some trusting. Like that's not an activity. But can I show up and really knowing my content? Can I be reliable? And every time when I say I'll send you the documents, send it. And can I have that professional interest means intimacy to show that, Hey, I've done my research. I've looked at your industry. Here are the three things that your competitors doing. We have a cross section of that, and he's the insight that I want to share with you today. Like that's a really different place to come to as a, as a partner at that table.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah, I like that a lot. That's that's great. so next is consideration. So what, that's not, that's not super clear early. Tell us about that. What's that
nathan-clark:Yeah, sure. So this is a kind of a similar idea to in the marketing world, you have AI da you know, attention, interest, desire, action, and considerations, a little bit about, you know, kind of creating that interest and desire early. And this is going to come from some good discovery. it's about asking the right questions and uncovering the pains and, you know, a lot of people. Talk about paints. A lot. One thing that I think is missing also is the stakes sometimes you know, our client actually isn't in pain, so to speak, right? That they're not saying, you know, this is really painful for me, but our solution is one that reduces the stakes of getting something wrong. And this has become really clear to me it up God, where, you know, from a security standpoint, it, you know, If you'll just, if business as usual, that's fine. but if you've got a data breach, there's a data lake and that there's some misconfigured thing out on the internet and it's your customer daughter is out there and in a regulatory environment, for example, day to day, there's no pain, but if you get it wrong, the stakes are so high. that we need to have that conversation and you need a solution in place. And so sometimes we kind of miss that as a salesperson that the stakes are not there. And so that's, you know, just about asking those questions that we all know around, you know, what would this look like if you don't solve this problem or if it goes wrong and you know, all the other versions of it.
mark_mcinnes:Okay. Got it. That makes perfect sense. okay, so this third one was clarity.
nathan-clark:clarity. Yeah. So if we look at the, you know, my world is very much B2B SAS, but you know, if you're, if you're a listener right now and you're not thinking about you, you know, you're not in that, in that world. Just think about where this might shift a little bit. but the, the default response here is around, you know, pitchers and demos too often salespeople start pitching their products super early. They haven't actually uncovered those pains or those steaks or the. Right. Th those of you that know the jobs to be done framework the jobs that our customers are trying to achieve. you know, we need to get that done. So we've created that consideration. We found out more. Now we get to make it clear what our product or our solution has to offer to help them get to that place. And, you know, this is. The pitch and the demo, this is just answering questions. This is Sharon collateral. This is pulling in maybe you pull in an executive from your, you know, from your organization to, you know, create some authority and maybe a little bit more, more proof and you bring in the big guns. Right. sometimes that happens. So that's just really making it shop in your buyer's mind, how you can solve their problem.
mark_mcinnes:Okay. So is this, is this the where, you know, it's the, why you, or why us.
nathan-clark:Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And, but, you know, I think that the point to underscore here's the concept is simple. This part is the pit where you talk about your company and everyone listening right now probably does that best because we all do that over and over and over and over. and at the same time, You'll notice it's step number three, not number one, but if you kind of go and do a bit of triage on lots and lots of sales conversations in the past, there's the, you know, the cold email outreach or the cold phone call saying, Hey, have you heard about Acme, Inc. We sell the best pen, big, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Here's why you should choose us. And so it's very deliberately further down the list here.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, you know, we've been talking about that for a long time,
nathan-clark:Yup.
mark_mcinnes:so, okay. next on the list is confidence. So that's number four. Is that right yet? We're up to
nathan-clark:that is, yeah. Number four. So a bit of, a bit of a summary. We've created connection with our prospect. You know, we've built some rapport. They want to do that. It seems like they want to do a bit of work with us, but we're, we're still in that kind of dancing stage. then now considering us, because we've been able to build that consideration and we've made it clear to them what a future, having engaged with us might look like, and now we need to convert that. Kind of clarity and consideration into confidence that we're actually the right solution because Hey, they're probably talking to other people at the same time too. or they need to go and drum up the, you know, the budget or get a business on board to say, Hey you know, we want to move ahead with this. So. What does that look like? That's the demonstration of value. If you've got an ROI calculator, fantastic. This is the moment maybe to you know, multithread this concept of going to find other people inside the organization and that'll pop up in the next step. it's about, you know, positioning yourself competitively it's it's knowing your, maybe having battlecards in your organization to understand your competitors And setting up kind of those conversational landmines so that when we get to talking about a competitor, You're framing your offering in such a way that it really you know, it doesn't, it doesn't position, you know, your competitor particularly favorably, and that's not about talking negatively about them. It's just about understanding where your productions and highlighting those things.
mark_mcinnes:And how we differentiate. So it's not about saying this, one's not about sales person's confidence. This is about putting confidence in the buyer.
nathan-clark:Correct? Correct. These are the, the goals. These are the evolving goals that you should have for your buyer. That they've created connection. Now, considering you they've got clarity, they've gained confidence now. of course the, the obvious one here that I hadn't quite gotten to yet was handling objections. Right? So making sure that we've hopefully preempted a lot of them, but also acknowledge them when they pop up.
mark_mcinnes:Okay. So w just quickly jump out of this for six. So with this model, are we trying to do this all in one G one meeting? Or is, or is this like a sales process across the life of the deal? Like, how do you sort of, what's your thoughts around that? Or is it both.
nathan-clark:I think it's mostly like across the deal, it evolves as the deal progresses. and actually it's a good, it's a good call out mark, because when we are in a deal, you know, maybe you just use HubSpot or Salesforce or whatever, and you're, you're transferring your deal from one stage to the next. There's always this kind of pressure, maybe from sales leadership to move it along. And maybe you take the call and you just move it. Right. Cause you've finished the demo. And so you move it along. And yet, if we look back and go, did I actually to actually hit the thing that I needed to in that moment? Like my customers on this journey too, I've done my demo bit. Did I actually create clarity for them? And so that's why there's this kind of separate. I almost think about, you know, if you think about the sailing, the seven seas, right. That the processes above the water, and then this kind of evolving go sitting under the water, always happening, you know, you're thinking about it there and it's actually influencing where that ship. So ships don't say, do they, I don't know. It doesn't matter about the terminology. I think people know where I'm going.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this is like the undercurrent of movement like
nathan-clark:Correct. I love it. Yeah,
mark_mcinnes:doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the current. Yeah. Okay, cool. So I've lost. Where are we up to? Sorry.
nathan-clark:we we, you know, we've just demonstrated, what does it look like to create confidence with your buyer? And then, you know, our next step, step number five is about building consensus.
mark_mcinnes:very important.
nathan-clark:Yep. So, you know, mark, maybe I'll put it on you for a second. Like. How are you finding conversations in organizations right now? as far as the buying process is concerned, are there more buyers for you even for, for what you do? or are they having to defer responsibility to other people? Is it faster or slower? I just want to hear someone else's voice about that kind of read on the, on the buying position at the moment inside of companies.
mark_mcinnes:okay. So there's nearly, always three people in a meeting when it starts to get a bit serious. All right. So what I find is, you know, this there's somebody that comes out hunting. and I'm just going to talk about marketing in a selling he's consulting, or because there's so many different people that are, that are businesses that I work with and they're all a little bit different. but you know, typically somebody would reach out to me that might be the EA for the managing director, or they might be the you know, the regional sales manager working on behalf of the sales director. You know, someone's been taxed, gum funds is training resource, right? So then they come out and they, they quiz me with a few questions. The next meeting is where it really happens. And then I'm usually with the CEO. The sales director, that person and someone from L and D. So typically there's those four people I need to get past. and then as soon as we start talking about giving me access to their slack channels or embedding videos into their LMS, I'm off to it.
nathan-clark:I T L and D Yeah. There's a whole bunch of players that now you'll look mock, you're a seasoned professional. So maybe you get everyone on board straight away, but is it, is it, what is it, you know, a accurate kind of representation to say that very often you've got someone that's all in someone that's maybe on the fence, maybe even a bit of a defect that going, I think the other solutions better. Is that a fair statement?
mark_mcinnes:Yup. Yup. I think that's absolutely true, you know, and, and T let's role play that, you know, so typically hi John, hi, John apartment will go well, you know, I'm not sure. you know, how are we going to keep these skills inside the organization? Once mark goes to sales director has gone out and right, he's got great content. Let's do it, you know, and the CEO is going. Binary from the sales director says, let's do it. Let's do it. You know, so, and I tell you like, well, why are we giving externals people access to our
nathan-clark:Yup.
mark_mcinnes:systems? so that's probably how it replays out. Not more often than not, but that's a new description there. Yeah. Okay.
nathan-clark:Yep. We've, we've got a Gartner, whoever it is talking about, you know, there's seven point something, eight point something buys in the process, whatever the number doesn't matter. There's more right. There's more than three years ago. It's more than five years ago. And it's more competitive. Like our customers know more than they ever have. They've got more information available to them at any time and where we're in these competitive kind of pursuit. So it's so important that we're building consensus inside that buying circle. so often maybe we've just got that one key buyer. If, if you're a sales manager right now and you you've heard this from a rep, right. Like, yep. My, you know, they're on board. They love it. We've got such a great relationship, you know, Pre COVID sometimes it was, you know, we've had drinks, I've took him out for lunch and whatever else, but reality is like, there's someone else in there that's maybe going to block that deal. And so. We need to be disciplined in managing those stakeholders and like actually kind of getting consensus. So this is like, get them into a trial. In many cases, if you're in B2B, SAS, get them hands-on with the product. If you're confident in your product, you know, you want to get them in the trial. You want them starting to put some of their content into there or uploading their information to CSUN utility pulling in the right uses. sometimes you have to go back and you have to repeat. Steps three and four, right? So it's like cool. You know, in my world where maybe, you know, if you were, if you're selling to me as a sales enablement manager and I reporting to a revenue operations function if you're selling to me, you might give me the demo of your great new sales enablement platform. And then I go, great. I love it. also I don't hold the budget. We're going to have to, you know, bring in my rev ops leader and she's probably gonna want to see it as well. So there's another demo or something to that effect, but it's really about going, what is my job here? You know, I've got the deal where it is, but I need to create consensus inside of this org. I need to give them the right information. Sometimes it's repeating the previous steps very often. It's about arming your real champion with what they need to sell it internally. And I think that's a kind of probably one of the key key moves there.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. And I see a very simple mistake might a lot, particularly on virtual presentations, you know, you might have four people, you know, the person that's quiet. You need to engage themselves people, you know, like if, if, if Nathan sitting there not saying anything, you know, it doesn't have any screen on don't ignore them. You know, like they're, they're often th the landmine, so you need to be able to say, Hey, Nathan, you know, just want to make sure I'm getting everything out of the way, but, you know, what's your, what's going to be important for you. Have I asked that all your questions, is there anything else, you know, try and drag them into the conversation because you know, if they feel a piece of difference, guess what happens in the post-meeting. Conversation, you know, Nathan, who you didn't spend any time on ghost social, you know, and the Senate and buying by consensus means everyone's going to be in. Right. So if they're not in you're out,
nathan-clark:Yeah, no, no, absolutely.
mark_mcinnes:so this is a
nathan-clark:not in your art. I think that's the thing. That's the Leinbach. Absolutely. Yup.
mark_mcinnes:Okay. So we, where are we up to now? We're up to six. Is that right?
nathan-clark:Yeah, We're up to six. So, you know, we've got consensus. a client is confident in what we've got to offer. They probably, at this point are asking for, Hey, can you, can you give me some numbers? You know, what does a quote look like? and so this is about building those commercials. Now, this is why this is like all the way down here Is what we talked about this right at the top. At this point, you can actually structure your offering to meet what you've now discovered. Right. Can you imagine if we, if you know that that's very same person that you just talked about that was quiet in the background. If we hadn't even done that work, maybe we didn't even proactively find those additional stakeholders where we send that quote through, or that, that proposal through it's getting passed around to them. And we haven't even had any opportunity to get them on board at all. right? And so you could send the best offer ever. But it turns up on the wrong person's lap and they haven't even had an opportunity to get on board with what you, you know, what, what you're, what you're offering. So this is the moment where, yeah, you're just getting that quote you're pricing competitively. You're structuring the deal, knowing what competitors might be in play and making sure that you kind of being smart about how you, how you price or configure a deal, set the terms, knowing what you do about the market and also using the language that maybe you picked up in that. Last meeting that you realize that, you know, these three people here are thinking about this big deal, this big project that they've gotten the next six months, and I'm going to align it to that now, rather than use my generic, you know, why us page and the proposal.
mark_mcinnes:Yup. Yup. Yup. Yeah. Look, I'm still surprised how many 28 pied proposals I say that have got the first 20 pages talking about their office locations across the country and how they've won awards and then page 28. There's a template for us to just drop in your solution.
nathan-clark:Exactly.
mark_mcinnes:Don't do that.
nathan-clark:That's right?
mark_mcinnes:Okay. So that means we're up to.
nathan-clark:Yeah. That was the simplest one commercials. They're easy. Everyone wants to. do those and hopefully we're all pursuing that. philosophy is just getting commitment. So again, like I I've seen this over and over and over. We've even gotten to this point. We thought the deal was great. Center of proposal, radio silence. Nothing we're following up. Hey, just checking in, leaving a voicemail, sending an email. I'll give you a call back on Tuesday, right? I'll check your checking in getting nothing. We've all, we've all seen it. So you know, from here, it's very much just about, you know, gaining that commitment and look. It goes without saying, but, but maybe it doesn't, maybe I need to call it out. Right. That's why I'm saying it. The thing is so often we do all that stuff and we just don't actually ask, like so many sales people I've seen particularly earlier on like, again, a lot of these things we've been talking through a really great seasoned rep, it's going to do a lot of those steps, you know, kind of unconscious competence from that, from that place. But many times actually say particularly new reps. And this is where I've kind of engaged with this model with one of my clients. If they've got new SDRs that are stepping into AA kind of world, so they've been sales development reps, and then the voice has just kind of booked the meeting. and now that just working through their pipeline, they're realizing I actually, I have to ask for the sale. What does that actually sound like? And so, you know, this is about creating some urgency. Right. So can I build some sort of constraints that maybe there's pricing that, that lapses at a certain time, maybe there's a kickoff period with a, you know, some sort of implementation team and you set a date for that. there's also other pieces just around, you know, how do I manage procurement? Right. So can I get commitment from them? Can I get the legals right? Can I get the, you know ULAs MSA, all those kind of every other acronym under the sun. and so it's about chasing those things, negotiating effectively having that skill, you know, available to tapping into that negotiation muscle and just gaining the commitment that you need. because they, you know, hopefully you've done everything right, and they're happy, but many, oftentimes there's, again, a little bit of a dance there just around getting that commitment and getting them over the line.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. Yeah. Look, I mean, this is the really super important step. So many times. You know, I see people, sellers where they say, go and create a proposal. Yeah, no problem. I'll email that to you. And there's no meeting booked in for the next steps for the discussion, you know, so never leave the meeting without booking the next one. You know, that that's a really, really simple commitment steps. Right. And if they won't book a meeting with it, guess what that tells you. Maybe
nathan-clark:And then not so committed, right? like. they're, they're not there. They're not yet. They're not there. Yeah.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. So don't blow up two hours of your life if it's not going to work, right. Sorry,
nathan-clark:right. Totally. So quick summary,
mark_mcinnes:in that tone.
nathan-clark:exactly. That you definitely could It's a quick, quick summary. We've created connection. We've now got a customer considering these things we've built that clarity in them to say yes. I think this solution that Acme is putting in front of me is the one, you know, that, that, that could solve it. now I'm, I'm, I'm feeling confident because you've demonstrated some more value, sent me some collateral about your integrations and who else you work with in a case study and all those things. I'm going to pass that around and build some consensus with my team so that they're on board as well, because I don't want to look stupid as a buyer either. Right. You know, if I'm a buyer, I don't, I don't, I'm putting my neck out. So I want to build some consensus. My team. Get the commercials to me. Great. feel comfortable with that. The pricing is about right. I get a little win on a discount. Fantastic, fine. and then, yeah, I feel good. And I've been asked to commit to moving ahead with this and I'm going to move forward. So that's kind of the idea of sailing the seven seas. And I think where you can really put this into practice is kind of to zoom out a little bit from your pipeline. If you're an individual contributor, zoom out for me, a pipeline, look at it and go. Am I actually fulfilling the needs that my buyers have throughout this process. I'm moving them in the CRM, but have I actually hit those goals that I need to and getting them to line up with my process. And then if I'm a manager, this is perfect for a dip, you know, deal reviews, coaching, you know, can I zoom in a little bit, not just ask about the tactics, you know, did you, did you send this, did you send this email, et cetera? You know, we've all heard those conversations. but realistically. Okay. You've got them post demo. Do you feel that that customer felt clear about our offering and is confident in the weather at solution? No. Okay. Go back to you know, it's kind of like monopoly, go back to, you know, whatever play again.
mark_mcinnes:to Garth.
nathan-clark:Exactly.
mark_mcinnes:Yeah. And I like what you said there about it not being like it's being seen. Independent of the CRM steps. You know, a lot of people think that the sales processes, the steps in the CRM. No, they're just the sales steps. They're just the steps in the CRM. you know, you've got to ask, have you taken your clients through that? So that might be seven, the seven CS siling the seven CS is really clever. I really like it. I think it's going to help a lot of people. So Nathan, how can people get more of you? Like what's the best way for them to get in contact with you, connect with you, get more of this sort of stuff happen. I do that.
nathan-clark:Yeah. so two things, default responses, you know, connect with me on, on LinkedIn, easy to find Nathan Clark. I'll be the guy in a blue color And a cheesy grin. so that'd be, maybe we can certainly jump on Twitter as well, but you're going to get a mixed bag of tweets there. It's a little less focused as, as I think is true for, for many people. and then, you know, I, like I mentioned before, I worked full time in a sales enablement role and I've got, I'm very committed to that. I do entertain around about three or four clients a quarter at most kind of around that, that card. I've got a website@nathanclark.net has got a bit of availability there. I don't want to go the hard sell here. So I'm just going to say if this is interesting to you very specifically around if you've identified a need in your team to. really think about like deal coaching. So could you have some outside counsel away from all the busy-ness and kind of distraction of your own company, everything you need to do and have some outside counsel around how to work through deals. That's probably where I can help outside of that. I'm going to just you know, head into the office each day do my work. But yeah, that, that, that's probably where I would, where I point people, if I was going to.
mark_mcinnes:And I really appreciate you sharing the seven CS with us on the boss podcast. Thanks very much for coming on.
nathan-clark:Thanks. My pleasure.