The secrets of going from Teacher to Million $ Sales Person | GrowthPulse The B2B Sales Podcast Ep11

Welcome to the latest episode of GrowthPulse: The B2B Sales Podcast, where we delve into the world of Business-to-Business sales, exploring the intricacies of sales processes, techniques, and the art of successful client relationships. In this episode, our hosts Daniel Bartels and Simon Peterson are joined by Ian Barker, a seasoned sales leader with a remarkable journey from BDR to AE to leading sales teams. Together, they uncover the essential elements of thriving in B2B sales and leadership roles.

Building Trust and Conviction:
Ian Barker kicks off the conversation by emphasizing the significance of building conviction in your product and trust in your team. The importance of believing in the value you offer your clients cannot be overstated. Ian's insights highlight that trust within your team is equally crucial, as it allows for experimentation and learning from failures in a supportive environment. He offers advice on navigating the uncharted waters of startup sales and the vital role of adaptability and learning.

Diversity and the Power of Differing Perspectives:
The discussion evolves into the importance of diversity in sales teams. Daniel shares a compelling anecdote about building a diverse team that brought in varied backgrounds and experiences, resulting in a wealth of different perspectives that drove success. Simon underscores the value of diversity, not merely for meeting corporate quotas, but for fostering innovation through a mix of skills, perspectives, and backgrounds.

Critical Questions and Effective Communication:
Ian recounts a real-world sales scenario where critical questions were brushed aside, leading to a missed opportunity. The conversation delves into the power of asking the right questions and truly listening to your client's concerns. Ian advocates for the role of "pessimistic ears," encouraging sales professionals to actively uncover potential roadblocks and address them head-on during the sales cycle. Effective communication, particularly in understanding the client's purchasing process, can make or break a deal.

Conclusion:
In wrapping up this enlightening episode, our hosts underline the significance of embracing change, consistently learning, and adapting to evolving market dynamics. The journey from a teacher to a successful B2B sales leader is a testament to the power of tenacity, learning from failures, and the unwavering commitment to personal and professional growth.

Transcript

Ian Barker: 0:00

It was really like, Hey, um, I feel like I'm the only one that have my issues. I'm the only one that going through what I'm going through. And that's completely false. But like the the interesting thing is that I learned from that. And I was thinking about the other day, it's like my last two roles that I've got, I never submitted a resume play. They

Simon Peterson: 0:16

agree. It's interesting, I think, Dan, to your point, I, I'd add one thing, as you're as you mature, and you get a little bit more in your career path, you you become a little bit more, I guess, self confident, certainly not arrogant, but self confident. And I've found personally, as that self confidence is built, I allow myself to be more vulnerable. And I think when you're vulnerable to a group of people in an in a work setting, you might be the boss, but you don't know all the answers.

Daniel Bartels: 0:50

Welcome to growth pulse, the b2b sales podcast, where we take a deep dive in the world of business to business sales, and how businesses can get the most out of their investment in salespeople sell systems and processes, the lifeblood of any thriving organisation. Join us as we explore a range of topics as well as speak to some of the industry's thought leaders, vendors, success stories, people who have just won and failed on their journey in business and sales. Before we get started, please do us a huge favour and click subscribe follow alike wherever you're watching or listening to us. Also, please drop us a comment that you subscribed. We'd love to get to know our audience. Welcome, everybody to a another edition of growth pulse the b2b sales Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Dan Bartels, and I'm joined by my co host, Simon Peterson. How are you, buddy?

Simon Peterson: 1:38

Can I Dan? Very well, thank you really looking forward to the podcast today?

Daniel Bartels: 1:42

Yeah, it's a great one. And we're joined by Ian Barker, one of our great friends we've worked with, all the way from all over from Canada. They were just talking a moment ago, I'm not going to steal your thunder because I will definitely get the towns wrong. Where are you calling in from? In Canada?

Ian Barker: 1:57

My small town are really so I'm literally like an hour and a half north of Toronto?

Daniel Bartels: 2:01

No, it's one of the great things I do love about sales is the fact that you know, there is always some customers you can connect to you don't necessarily have to be working in a in a big city or, you know, a major cosmopolitan town, you can you can really do this this role from anywhere, right. And I think that's one of the great things that attracts us to it. But no, I want to give everyone a huge opportunity to learn a bit about yourself. We've obviously worked together in the past. But Mike, you've got a fantastic story all the way from being a teacher to sort of enterprise sales. And I think that's a huge, a huge learning curve for anybody might give us a bit of a background sort of how you got into you know where you are today. But sort of you know, a bit about you.

Ian Barker: 2:40

Yeah, for sure. And it's a pretty long story. But I think it's pretty important. So while you guys can pause me when you want but essentially going to university, right, I took Kinesiology. So it really the funny thing is at that point, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was in sports. I was super athletic. So kinesiology to study human movement just ends up being that approach that you take. So went to university had four years of fun getting marks playing sports. And then I kind of got to the point where I had to make a decision, what am I going to do. And I've always been influenced by teachers really appreciate the teachers I had growing up. And I personally love coaching. Like for me, I always had this vision of having kids in the little Rugrats and coaching their soccer or baseball or what may be. And so I kind of got to that point where I had to make a decision, and I opted to go to Teachers College. And at that point, I don't know if it was me just saying, hey, I need to buy some time. But I knew that it was something that I would be happy doing. So I did one year of Teachers College here in Canada, and then ultimately got put in another position where it's Hey, alright, now you're out in the workforce. So it's applying to jobs working in teaching. And not that I was unhappy with my role, but I actually went and had a dinner with my brother. And I was kind of frustrated with the system and just trying to get in. It's highly bureaucratic. And I said, I just don't know what I'm doing right now. And we had probably about eight buddies around the table, and everybody looks me at the same time and goes, Why the heck aren't you in sales? I was like you don't want I don't know. And I done sales in my past retail, like b2c Working at cell phone shops and whatnot. And I really couldn't give them a firm answer. They said, Ian, please, you're so good at sales. You're such a great talker, you're always genuine conversation. You always want to explore and understand things a little bit more. Why not try and get into sales when you're young. So I kid you not literally put down a napkin, put down my plate, ran to the guest bedroom and jumped on my laptop and searched high tech companies. And the first one that came up was Salesforce. And so I send over my probably if I look back at it like absolutely awful resume but I shot it off to Salesforce and across my fingers. And within that week I got a call back from a recruiter and honestly I would say the rest is history.

Daniel Bartels: 4:56

What do you reckon stood out in terms of what you put your you said you said it wasn't an ordinary resume. You know, you look back on it now and cringe. What do you think stood out?

Ian Barker: 5:05

Hold? That's a tough one. I think honestly, I always say that I think they took a chance on me. And I think what the opportunity was is Salesforce was big back then this is back in 2014. Like I think they definitely had a lot of buzz. Personally for me, I had no idea I couldn't, I had no clue what Salesforce was what cloud computing was. But I think it was still early enough where they were just looking to bring people in, right? They were at such high growth that I and again, I wasn't coming in at a enterprise or a sales full sales cycles. role. I was coming in at the entry level, I was coming into bdr. And actually remembering the conversation. Ted Begley is the recruiter. He's an awesome guy. And he was great for me, because he challenged me at every part of our conversation. And one of the biggest decisions, or one of the biggest challenges I made to him is he said, Hey, I think you're an SDR. And this role at Salesforce in SDR is largely inbound. BDR being largely about within Salesforce. And I challenged him, I said, Look, Ted, my day job is trying to gain people's interest level, within five seconds, I work behind a kiosk selling cell phones, my job is to be able to understand what's going on, what are their challenges before they even promote those or provide those to me? And he said, Alright, you're on DVD, or you're on a BDR. So, typically, I don't know if there was something exactly in my resume. But I think once I got that conversation, I knew that there was no looking back.

Simon Peterson: 6:31

Yeah. And it sounds like you're a naturally curious kind of guy.

Ian Barker: 6:35

I honestly, I think it's just one of those innate qualities I have, I don't know necessarily where I picked it up from, it's probably just the sales roles that I've had. And just kind of like that, that lucrative training that you get throughout the process. But I also think like it meshes with what we think salespeople are, and again, this is very general statements. But we typically think that they're team oriented, they might be captain of certain such teams. And really, at that point in time, like, not only is it like curiosity, but it's like a communication style, right, like trying to genuinely understand people understand what makes them tick, make sure they're motivated, and that you can get that team to essentially their goal, they jumped

Daniel Bartels: 7:11

into a video role. It it's one of the most difficult roles. I think, in any sales career, you don't, you don't know what you don't know about sales, you're asked to make one of the most difficult pieces of activity, which is just the outbound activity to someone who's not expecting you to make a phone call. So for those who don't know, basically, a BDR is a business development representative. Or you might call it inside sales for different for different industry sectors. You know, it's that outbound motion to a targeted prospect. They don't know you're calling. What do you think the key lesson is for someone stepping into that role? Like what are the things that when you look back on that time period? Now you say, these are the things that made me successful?

Ian Barker: 7:57

Yeah, you have to have an absolute like mental fortitude, you have to be able to take rejection and be able to just take a no and move on. Now, that doesn't mean that you take that No, and you move on and you try to ignore it. Really, I think what people in the business development representative role do really well, is they acknowledge that they'll write it down. And then to understand how to get better. I know I mean, when you get really good at BDR, obviously, you're going to you're going to understand the handles objections on the call. But if you're starting out, and you really are trying to get understand your niche and where you're going to fit in, take those objections, write them down, work with your team, try to understand what are different ways that people use spitball different ideas back in the day. And I know we're going into a remote world. But one of the biggest advantages to me at Salesforce is we were all in cubicles. I don't know if cubicles exist anymore. It's crazy. But we're all in those those confined areas, and you kind of pop your head over and you're listening to someone else. You're like, Oh, that was a great idea. So for me, like, the biggest advice I give to BDR says write everything down. Any conversations you have any challenges you get into and be able to have that mental fortitude of, hey, just because they're saying no to you doesn't mean that the nth next customer or buyer you speak to is going to give you the exact same No, you just have to move on and be able to handle each objection.

Simon Peterson: 9:14

Just just on that, you know, that? You know, early in your career. You were in a cubicle surrounded by other people. It's obvious, right? You're you're learning from everybody around you both what they do well, what they make mistakes and et cetera. We're in 2023 Imagine you're 2324 year old self now, moving into a BDR role. 100% remote. It's, it's a it's a different world. How do you how do you think BDS today will pick that sort of information up?

Ian Barker: 9:47

Yeah, it's interesting. I worked with a few like BDR teams too. And there's so many new automation tools that are out there to help BDR's or STRS in their role. But for me, I think like you can't get away from those facts. foundational items, and I talked about this sometimes on LinkedIn. But if you're starting with a new organisation, and you know nothing about your role or the business, the most important thing you can do is reach out to existing customers. Again, there's, there's a bit of tact and how you do this right, you're probably going to want to reach out to the AE that owns the account, you're probably going to want to have a conversation with them. The largely the opportunity here is get in front of his customers and understand why they bought, what challenges were they going through? How long did it take them to make a decision, all of these questions that you can get garner from them to be able to make your outreach more effective, I think is super, super powerful in this day and age. Because yeah, like these automation tools, they're absolutely great. And they increase efficiencies, but they fundamentally avoid or just don't address the challenge, which is you need to be good at your job. And if you don't know how to effectively message in these cadences, then you're just going to be one of an nth number of people that are probably never going to get promoted, or are going to sit there challenge with thing is sales right for me. And it might just be about trying to understand, hey, get in front of buyers and understand what actually makes them tick. And you'll be able to be more successful at your job.

Daniel Bartels: 11:10

That's a really good point. I think one of the one of the things that is different in b2b that b2c sales is in b2c, it's about designing a system and emotion that the relationship with the customer has with the business or the brand, right, primarily. And you know, it's the McDonald's, do you want fries with that? Like, how much can I automate and just make that rope piece happen. Whereas in b2b, underneath every transaction is a relationship between executives inside these two organisations. And that starts at that first contact, it started that first phone call, or that first message you get whether it's on LinkedIn, and email, if it's a landing on a webpage, whatever it may be, if it's a phone call, if it's a text message, like that's the kernel of the conversation, and it's always between two individuals. And to your point, it's how do you have that knowledge that you're not going back to your notes to, to work out? What did the business say that I should say? Because it always is to humans about how do I solve a problem? You know, whether it doesn't matter? What, what's what you're selling in service to its product? If it's a mixture of the two? What is it that we solve? What are our current customers get from working with us? How do we help you solve those things? And if it's not a fit, hey, that's okay, great, nice to meet you. Move on to the next person. And we can do and you keep going through that process. So I think that's a really good message to learn as well. So maybe you you had the experiences of Vidya. And from there, you know, you've definitely progressed through your career, and I want to move through kind of the the rest of your career because, you know, that's been a super exciting journey to watch and kind of be a part of to it from it from a from afar, you know, what was the step from BDR? And sort of what are the triggers that you got out of that? So for lots of beady eyes, it's a big question, how do I get to the next tip as well?

Ian Barker: 13:03

Yeah. And I guess before like I precursor, because I went from BDR to AE within Salesforce, one of the biggest, biggest mistakes I made was not building a true relationship with my AES in that role when I was in BDR. And why that's so important is it actually not that it came to be but but when I got to AE, my AE that I managed as a BDR, I ended up becoming my RVP. So ended up becoming my boss, again, in just a different framework. And it was luckily one of those lessons I learned early in my career were like, Hey, you got to make sure that you have relationships with everyone and I blamed the system back then I was like, oh, it's the system, like I have to be hard, I have to be difficult to work with, I have to make sure I get my numbers or I won't get promoted. And I didn't realise that there was a relationship involved. And it really, I think, I got lucky because my number spoke for me. But really, when you look back, there was all this carnage and damage I have done. And it came full circle when my AE ended up becoming my manager. And God bless him. Like he was a great guy. We're great friends, but he kind of hung over my head. And to my benefit, I had a really good first year I did 200% of my number. I ran almost every territory in Canada at that point for Salesforce. So it gave me the opportunity to mend that relationship. I'm sure if I had come in and I've laid a goose egg, it would have been a completely different story. But yeah, maybe that transition was big. And it's, it's another thing that I had a lesson to learn is that when I got into AE, I got lucky that I had q4 that I fell into now I thought that was it was either a blessing or a curse, right? It's a blessing because you get to see everybody closing these deals and the energy is high and you're so excited about moving into the new year. The other challenge was that there wasn't anyone to support you. I was kind of in there, you're looking for maybe help you're trying to manage some of these counts, but everybody's got deals to try to close. You can appreciate that but it just became a bit of an interest trouble for me, most important advice I give to people is to hit earlier, when you're in BDR. Reach out to these AES, understand the sales process, understand what happens in between the actual processes from a discovery to a demo, there's so many things that I didn't appreciate that us as Account Executives did. When I was in BDR, I thought I could just come up, I'll be able to close deals, but then you don't realise how many cross functional teams you got to work with? How many people you need to get in front of the customer, not just the first person you're speaking with, but legal, you need to get in front of the CXOs, you need to get in front of procurement, procurement. There were so many things I didn't understand. So really networking, and being able to understand what are those things that necessarily you can't see in sitting in a demo, sit down with the A's and understand what are those intangible things that you really need to do in a deal to make sure that you're successful?

Simon Peterson: 15:53

It's, it's an interesting one in because you talk about the networking piece. I'm curious, did you find yourself as you got more and more into the sales motion and potentially lesson learned as you've moved out of BDR role? But did you have mentors along the way? Did you find certain people certain types of AES, would lean in more than others? And did you actively seek out mentors to help you work through the steps in your career?

Ian Barker: 16:23

Yeah, not early on. And it was probably more dedicated around peers, you'll notice if you've ever been a BDR, there's, it's almost like winning a championship, like those people are your friends for life. Those are people that you went to war with. And, again, maybe that's another mistake that we make, right. And that kind of role is it's like only only we understand ourselves, no one else understands us and goes through the grind. But then, in terms of moving into my account, executive career, that's where you really understood where mentorships came in place, whether it be like old RSVPs, or typically, you want to kind of find that step level, right, you want to find someone who's likely in a role above you, if not to above you, to help guide you, they've been through that process, they understand it, for example, for me, or for someone in my position, like I expected BDR to reach out to me and say, hey, I want understand your career progression, right, from a BDR to an AE. Now, technically, in the consulting and an advisory role, like those are the people that I see should be seeking out people like myself that are an account executive roles to creep carrying those mentorships. But yeah, it was something early on my career that I just didn't take advantage of. And I think it's where I had those struggles, but once you find them, I think the biggest thing is keeping the cadence with them. Because it can be something where with mentors, you find them and then you kind of call them when you need them, you're a fair weather friend, that's not how those relationships work, you really got to make sure that you're creating a cadence and that it's giving get right, being able to provide something for those people as much as they can provide. Yeah,

Daniel Bartels: 17:51

I think that's a good point. I mean, it's, it's, I've had lots of people over time, reach out and say, Hey, listen, I want to, I want you to mentor me and A, B, C, whatever it may be, right. And the the one thing that I will say to them, and I've only I've only had a few people actually properly take this up, is I will happily invest as much time as you want. But I can't own that relationship piece. Because it's, it's awkward, it doesn't matter how senior you get, you don't step into this role and go, I'm going to be a mentor now. It's, it's a piece that you want someone to come and seek from you. But as a mentor, you learn a lot from it as well. So you are always willing to be a part of that engagement. But it is always to the to the person asking for that advice, like drive the cadence, you know, drop a weekly session or a fortnightly or monthly, whatever, it's going to be time in someone's calendar that they'll make the time for it. And occasionally they'll say, Listen, I've got to shift it. They're not doing it because they don't want to talk to you. They're doing it because stuff came up and hey, look, we've just got to shift the time. But it's absolutely a part of that piece of like, seek those individuals out. ask them the question, you'd be surprised how many will say yes. And maintain that cadence with them over a long period of time. That's where you get the value.

Ian Barker: 19:11

The other thing is like, don't over engineer it. Like to your point like when you're going to be happy to help someone out if they reach out to sure you want to provide a framework and help them understand where you're looking to get to but don't over engineer it. Like it's a coffee chat. It's just like this in the podcast, like have a conversation with them. Don't make it too formal, like help them understand and be transparent about what you want. A lot of people I feel like are transparent. These conversations are like, hey, I want to get this from this. What do you want to get from this? That's an important aspect. Be willing to turn

Daniel Bartels: 19:37

up and just say hey, listen, I need some help. I want to go from being a BDR to an AE, I want to go from an AE to a first line leader. First line to second line. I want to open my first company Hey, listen, I want to work out how I don't know learn more about marketing, whatever it may be you want to do, be clear on what that's going to be. And then as the relationship evolves, you'll have to Different things that come up, say, Hey, listen, I've got a problem. Can you help me with these things? And if that person doesn't feel comfortable, often they'll refer you to somebody else. You know what, that's not my expertise. But I know somebody who can help me that let me help you help me connect. And I think that's a superpower of really good salespeople a really good executives, who learn how to connect with people and build and maintain it in a longtime relationships.

Ian Barker: 20:23

Well, it's interesting you say that too, right? Because I talked about not having mentors when I kind of started out and that was foolish on my part, but it was really like, Hey, I feel like I'm the only one that have my issues. I'm the only one that going through what I'm going through. And that's completely false. But like, the the interesting thing is that I learned from that, and I was thinking about the other day, it's like my last two roles that I've got, I never submitted a resume. And it's so important in this day and age, we hear see it on LinkedIn all the time, like, how do you get a job, it's like, you can't just put your resume on a pile and expect someone to give you a call back. And it's tough for a lot of people right now. And it's tough to hear. But it's one of those things where you need to you need to do what the job entails as an account executive or BDR, like you need to multi thread, you need to reach out to people in the organisation you need understand what's going on. And through those relationships, I was able to develop my last few roles, I haven't even submitted a resume, I remember I got the job. They're like, oh, we need your resume, like its practicality, like we need to get it a formality, we need to get your resume. And it's like, they didn't even know that they hadn't asked for. It's just because of those relationships that I developed in the multi threading within the organisation. Everyone's like, that's the guy we want. And so I think that's paramount now in this day and age is that you can't just submit a resume and be like, I'm hoping this is gonna work out.

Daniel Bartels: 21:32

Yeah. As a salesperson, we often really forget that. You've got to build and sell yourself on a consistent basis as much as you're selling the product of a solution that you're, you're you're representing. And you know, how do you build your career? And how are you selling yourself into that next opportunity? Some of them you know, some of the best salespeople in the world work for zero base and 100%. Commission? You know, that's building a business, right? I mean, you know, Simon, we've talked a heap about this. I mean, I know you've got some some long opinions on this piece of how do you build yourself, but how do you think about

Ian Barker: 22:06

that? So for me personally, it's actually I had a long thought or a long hard thought about what I was going to do in terms after Salesforce. So getting laid off. And Salesforce kind of dynamically changed the way that I approached how to how to build a brand, or essentially how to promote myself externally. And I know that I come with a lot of sales value. I've known that throughout my career just simply from people reaching out to me and saying, Hey, and how you do this weekend? How do you do that, and you start to appreciate that, hey, there might be something that you can actually provide others. And so I made the conscious decision about two months ago now to start posting publicly on LinkedIn, about five times a week as consistently as I can. And from that, I don't know what the outcome is going to be. But I think for me, it's largely being able to share my knowledge and what I've went through. And should that come to something bigger, who knows. But right now, I think it kind of falls into or dovetails into my mind just talking about teaching, right? I love to share knowledge. And I'd love to see other people better benefit from it. And it's actually incredible how much feedback I've gotten in the past two months, if people just reach out be like, Hey, I'm applying your tips and tricks or the conversations I have with people to help them get jobs and then reaching out and being like, Hey, I got the job. And I was also able to negotiate an extra week of vacation, like, it's super impactful to be able to see the impact you're making on or the influences you're making in other people's lives and careers

Simon Peterson: 23:33

completely agree. It's interesting, I think, Dan, to your point, I'd add one thing. As you're as you mature, and you get a little bit more in your career path, you you become a little bit more, I guess, self confident, certainly not arrogant, but self confident. And I've found personally, as that self confidence is built, I allow myself to be more vulnerable. And I think when you're vulnerable to a group of people in an in a work setting, you might be the boss, but you don't know all the answers. And I think certainly opening yourself up to be vulnerable, I found engages my team in the debate and the conversation, how we run a sales cycle, what we do, how we do it really well, what we failed at what we're going to improve next time. And I find that when a team looks at their leader, and you know that you clearly know what you're doing, et cetera, but you open yourself up to being a little bit vulnerable, but definitely curious about how to improve that, to me also creates a real genuine relationship. And I've found, certainly when I've been mentoring people, you know, they'll ask me a question. I just don't know the answer. Or I know people that do know the answer, and just opening yourself up to say, I'm not the oracle that knows everything. I think that also helps certainly allows the people I've mentored To give him permission to not know the answer to everything, because I think if you sort of alluded to it earlier that you know, early in your career, that it was all about you, you had to be the best person, you had to know everything, you have to be the hero. Certainly, you know, the BDR role is one of survival of the fittest. But I think as you get further on in your career, actually admitting to yourself, you don't know the answers to everything is really the first step to that rapid career journey that you've certainly been on the openness to learn, etc.

Ian Barker: 25:32

And I think it's tough to share, but you want to do with the STRS, and the BDRs, that are entry level, in the world of sales, everything is transparent. Everybody knows your performance, everybody knows how you're doing. And the challenge is, is if there's not someone there to tell you, Hey, you're not defined by your numbers, you fall into it, right. And if you're low on the dashboard, you become desperate. If you're high on the dashboard, you begin to get an ego. And it's one of those things where I know if me in a position of power, that would be one of those things that I would stress is, hey, we're not defined by our numbers, as a collective whole assure the business wants to do well. But let's lean on each other to understand how do we get past these points? How do we move forward? How do we make sure that as an organisation we're successful, it's the same way to look at as yourself like, you're not defined by one month. Heck, you could falter in one month, but achieve 20% in the entire year. It's all about perspective and timeline, whatever you're looking at, you're going to define success. Just define it in the way that makes sense for you so that you build your confidence.

Daniel Bartels: 26:31

Yeah, I think a lot of salespeople forget, particularly when you're early in your career, maybe you haven't learned to yet versus forget that it's never about a single deal. It's never about a single role. It's never about a single year, quarter month, whatever it may be. It is about consistent performance over a long period of time. And that performance is is built, it's not, you know, I hear people give credits to the start, you know, that experience you had at the beginning of someone's saying to you, you're good at talking to people, and you can relate, you're a great salesperson. And you may or may not agree with this. But when you look back on yourself, at that point, you're like, I wasn't I wasn't a salesperson. You guys all might have thought I had potential. But I didn't know what a salesperson was when I started. Yeah, there are some personality pieces that mean, I might have a bit more resilience. But it doesn't necessarily like that's not what a salesperson makes. And and I think it's learning all those skills. When I saw this great clip from Ed Sheeran the other day, actually playing on an interview, how bad he was at see at the beginning. So I learned to be a be an artist, I learned to be musician. And I think it's the same as being a salesperson, nobody starts their career, being a strategic enterprise salesperson closing million dollar deals, it just doesn't happen. And all those people who've even built startups that you think, you know, rupt it overnight, they've been around for 10 years learning, learning their craft, they've built it, they're failed multiple times. And I think in sales, it's understanding that there are more, there are more dips in the curve than there are spikes. And every single one of those dips, every one of those rejections is getting new, that is building up that the scales on the back, it's building up the scar tissue, right? How do I learn how to not do that next time and, and it is that resilience, that long term, you know, builds, we need to go and when you mentioned a moment ago, you know being laid off at Salesforce, and you'd be amazed at the number of people who've had that experience and a bit if you're in sales, you will get laid off at some point in time. And that's completely okay. You know, you kind of not trying hard enough, or you're not pushing hard enough, in a territory that's more difficult. Or in that year, that's, you know, you're trying to get outside your comfort zone. I think that's a really key piece of messages in particular at the moment where so many of our colleagues around the world are struggling with either finding a new role or that their company has downsized and whatever it may be. This is the downside of of a downward pointing economy of learning those key pieces of how do you pick yourself up and go again? I mean, Simon, you've been through more of these cycles, and then I have only a little bit more what you know, what are your key lessons is going through those cycles

Simon Peterson: 29:19

made it so I guess the first lesson, it's not about you 99% of the time, you're a decent salesperson. And look, it's interesting, I spent 20 years in my first company, which probably never happens and probably never will happen again. I love that and it was you know, building a foundation but then I got into SAS and I've had a number of different roles over that period of time and I think, you know, getting laid off, you know, leaving an organisation you it's a stressful time but I think you go through a phase of, I guess feeling like you're not worthy or you're not something about you is not perfect but as I think the key lesson I learned is nobody's perfect. A and B, I think it's it happens to all of us. And it's it's not necessarily about you. It's the circumstances of the market, the company, things change, bad timing, whatever. But you just got to pick yourself up and move on. And I think in you know, it's interesting, you left Salesforce and stayed in the Salesforce ecosystem and moved on to a company. I believe financial force was your next move. Now, Satya? You know, it's an interesting one, because you had started your sales career at Salesforce, you started at the bottom, as you said, sort of in BDA, you move through SMB commercial and became a, you know, a good salesperson at Salesforce, then you moved, you jumped in same ecosystem, but completely different product. How did you go about, I guess, changing your perspective, because I think you learn a lot of things at Salesforce, a great education machine for sales, and then you're jumping into a brand new organisation, that must have been tough.

Ian Barker: 31:05

Yeah. And the way that I think about is like, I got like my four to five year degree in business, because I didn't have a business degree, right. So Salesforce, kind of dive in in feet. First, I got that business degree. And there was something that was just like, itching at me, in terms of, I considered myself young, which I was, but I had understood CRM. So I understood the front office play, I knew sales, marketing, a bit of the operation side. But I always left a meeting, just dumbfounded that I could sit in a room with a CFO and really have no understanding of the tools, he touched what was important to him, because I was really having conversations around sales opportunity, closing business, but at the end of the day, no real money had been exchanged yet. So for me, I just thought it was a good opportunity to go over stay within the ecosystem, which made it a lot more easy and jump over to financial force. And so when I got there, it was I kind of had that you have all those self doubts? Well, when I moved to financial force, I tried to really reverse that and say, Hey, you have all the tools in the toolkit now, now go apply them and be even more dangerous. And on top of that, not only could I have conversations with on the back office, as I was learning, understanding professional services and accounting, I could handle conversations on the front end with Salesforce. And to me, at Sur tinea it was it was a leg up upon other peers and colleagues that didn't have the ability to have the understanding of the Salesforce ecosystem. Because there's two fundamental buyers in every conversation you go into, there's your customer, or your prospect, and then there was Salesforce, you not only had to sell your buyer and your customer, your prospect on why your solution was good, you then had to go and pivot to Salesforce and tell them why you're eating all their budget and all the money that's been assigned to Salesforce and why it's a good decision, right? So it like it was even a degree harder in terms of like sales approaches, the methodologies of being able to understand hey, I'm not only just selling to my customer, I now need to sell the to people, I think

Daniel Bartels: 33:18

translating that message to the wider market, right? I think so many salespeople don't understand that context of this, there's a transaction beyond the transaction. So it might translate that you're selling what doesn't know what you're selling. But it might be the bank that this particular buyers got to convince what they're going to spend their money on. It might be investors, it might be that there are other parties or partners that they're working with. And if you're in building, you're selling to a subcontractor, who's got to go and sell to the primary contractor, who's got to go and sell to the developer. So it doesn't matter how great your product is, if those people along the chain, don't also agree in the execution of this, your deal is not going to happen. You know, if you're selling spare parts to a manufacturer whose product is bought by somebody else, again, if that doesn't deliver the outcomes that the end user or that the final part of this transaction needs, you're not going to get the outcomes. So I think it's a really good lesson we all learned selling in an ecosystem, that if you want to go and do these bigger deals, how do you rap or understand everybody else in that transaction, and start to actually pull those levers at the same time. It not only accelerates your deals, it expands the size of what they could possibly be. Because otherwise everybody's been really cautious about that first engagement or how much we might invest. Because I'm not quite sure how successful this will be worth when everybody every single party, that sort of stakeholder group is invested embedded in the engagement and looking beyond the transaction, the size, the scope, the profitability, you can drive, all expand as a factor of that and I think that's a key lesson. And that, you know, we learned at selling as, as ISVs inside the Salesforce ecosystem, but it applies to every single company. And it's amazing to me how many companies really don't learn that I mean, Simon, you sold at SAP for a long time, and you sort of really taught me a whole lot of that about selling it in that sort of ecosystem model, you're where have you also have you seen it sort of applied wider in the market? Look, it's an

Simon Peterson: 35:22

interesting one, I'm now in a in a mode where I'm selling data protection. And the role I'm in right now. It's pure, indirect. So you know, my history with SAP, Salesforce, it's etc. It's a direct sales model. So the salesperson engages the prospect and you do the deal. Where I am now it's a role of influence. And you know that the role, it's interesting. So the actual sales motion is 100%. Indirect, and that is a conscious decision by the business, how we engage. So we have distributors, resellers, alliance partners, that is a really complicated, I wouldn't say mess, but a complicated list of relationships that are out there. And you've just got to take everybody's point of view into account. And I think, what's interesting, I talked to my sales team now, and it's very much it's an indirect sales model, but a direct engagement model. So I still need to convince my end customer that the data protection solution that I'm talking about is actually going to solve a business problem. And really, one of the things I've got to do is move that conversation to a business conversation. So we talk about cybersecurity, ransomware, all of those bits and pieces. But fundamentally, at the end the day, I'm not the one that's writing the transaction. So I've got a role of influence to a reseller to an implementation partner to an alliance partner. And I think that many different stakeholders, it's complicated. But the upside of that model is, it's a one to many, so I've got, you know, 10 sellers in a team, but I've got 100 Odd resellers that those 10 sellers are talking to, so my reach is massive. So the ability for me to make a big number is enormous. However, the role of the seller is a role of influence. And to your point, Dan, there's always somebody down that supply chain that you are needing to influence, make sure that they understand the problem I'm solving. And I think a lot of people that have done their entire career as a direct seller would get shaky and nervous when they were think about the number of other people out there that are influencing their ability to be successful. And most enterprise salespeople are, by nature control freaks, and learning to open up and, and really educate the entire supply chain of that sales motion, around why this prospect will benefit from your solution. It's, it's a different way of doing things. But I think it's an enormously good challenge. But it means that role of influence becomes just that much more pivotal to your success. So it's fun. I've got to say throwing yourself in the deep end of 100% indirect model after so many years of direct, it's a different way of doing things. But I draw on my time at SAP where we had partners and roles of influence. Certainly tinea, we had resellers, very, very early stage resellers, but it's the fundamentals are the same, right? You've just got to identify who the stakeholders are in your sales cycle, how you influence them, how they get paid. If you don't know how the people in your supply chain get paid, then you're probably going to fall over pretty quickly. And at the end of the day, it's still a role of influence with the end customer, you still need to understand the problem you're going to solve. There's just that many more people in there. Yeah,

Daniel Bartels: 38:55

I mean, a and you spent some time in your careers, you sort of moved on from a land into pot and land at one of the big consulting firms. And I think the consulting firms have have lived and breathed this kind of stats fear of influence model for so long. That's how they that's how they run. I mean, what are the what are the key lessons that you learn to round? Your timing, your timing in big consulting?

Ian Barker: 39:16

Yeah, well, it's interesting, because my role as I come in, is to be business development. So a lot of these consulting firms are realising that maybe you need to have a two pronged approach. So we can't be fully 100% indirect or through the influence model, we need to actually be able to reach out to these customers and prospects on our own and try and develop our own business. So really, that's the role that I take on is speaking with other other vendors in the market, so to speak, that are looking to get involved with these these buyers or these prospects or customers and understanding if there's a way that I might be able to involve myself in the conversation. So it it's interesting because these firms are realising Hey, we can't necessarily go off 100% of the relationship model, which is probably a whole nother podcast topic of when we go to market. That approach but yeah, they're they're seriously trying to reconsider how's the how's the way that we get in front of these customers? And how do we approach that. And so my role in my job today is to try and influence not only the vendors to make sure that we're a part of their buying decision or their selling position, but also to get in front of the customer or the prospect and say, Hey, we would be the best to best serve you in this approach.

Daniel Bartels: 40:29

So now you've you've evolved from being being just a straight individual contributor as, as your foot in the marketplace, you know, having a singular quota. You're now you're building go to markets, and you're building teams, etc. How did you kind of go through that transition? And what are you kind of learning on the way? I'm Ben Simon pushed me into being a sales leader five plus six years ago now. And I'm still learning, I still got my own plates on, right. What are the key? What are the key things that you're learning along the way, in this transition? Yeah, it

Ian Barker: 40:57

was, it was something that was actually going to touch on before. But at the end of the day, I think you need to have a safe environment. And so when you're looking for roles, you need to make sure that you believe in not only the product, I think that's huge. You need to have conviction in what you sell. But you need to have trust in the people that are essentially going to be managing you. And what I've learned in some of my adviser roles is that I trust the team. And what that allows me to do is I can fail fast, and it's to learn it's not to kind of get upset with myself and get frustrated, like, and in some of these roles, you do need to fail fast. I'm working with a startup right now. And that's the only way that you're going to learn there's we're in a situation where there isn't a blueprint, we don't have the path to success. And so in order to define that we need to fail, and we need to understand what doesn't work. And where's our ICP? Is it 200 to 500 million is a 501 billion is a residential is a commercial, all these different questions are getting thrown at us. And to your point. Yeah, just you're always learning. And I think that's the other approach you need to take is that you have to be an absolute sponge, you have to be able to take criticism, you have to be able to take feedback, you have to be able to understand the market, and what it's throwing at you those different telltale signs to be able to understand like, how do we navigate this, but as long as you've got a team, I believe that truly supports you, and is not going to hold you against your failures or your blemishes or your your poor performance, then that's the one that's the people you want to get behind that are optimistic that you're able to achieve your goals. Yeah,

Daniel Bartels: 42:29

I mean, one of the things that I think is really interesting, amazing in the sales market at the moment, right? If you look at most of you look at most professions, you know, lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers have all moved to this model where to be a member of the society or whatever, they have to maintain those credentials, you have to do a minimum number of learning hours per quarter, like it's not per year, it's per quarter, to maintain it. And if you let it slip for kind of two or three quarters, someone from the society is giving you a call saying hey, listen, you haven't done the minimum number of hours. And you're you can't you can't find an excuse of saying, Yeah, but I've heard from a lawyer, I've had a big case. So I haven't done a you've got to do the hours. And as a salesperson, I think I know, when I came through earlier my career, if you were seen as one of those guys who constantly had, you know, more sales books on your desk, or you're always listening to on your podcast was really easy to perceive for yourself that? I don't know. But that wasn't cool. And I think we've really got to shake that off as salespeople and say, Hey, why why aren't you Why are you not? Learning more? Why are you not reading more? Why are you not learning from those who are offering information on podcasts or LinkedIn or whatever. Every other courier in the world does this all the time. And they formalise it into how they develop, right, we have to build this, this process, because if there is a process, there's skills, and you can learn them, and you can stand on the shoulders of others, you know, those who are out there teaching, we're not felt, you know, we're not infallible, we have our own mistakes. But, you know, we're trying to share what we've learned along the way. And so we can learn from our communities as well. You know, Simon, you know, we're doing a heap of, of teaching, and we're doing a heap of listening and learning all at the same time. It's really, really building it within us. And as I know, you're doing a whole heap as well, you know, probably ask you for Simon, you know, what are the what are the things over the last couple of months that have really struck you in terms of things that we should learn as leaders?

Simon Peterson: 44:35

I think there's a difference between as a leader being told you should be empathetic towards your team, you should be allowing your team members to be vulnerable or make mistakes, etc. You get told that there's a difference between being told you should be like that versus actually delivering on that your team. And, you know, I've worked with leaders before that We'll stand up and wave and tell me that, you know, it's okay that you can be, you can fail, you can be open, you can, you can trust me, etc. And you think that's great, but then their actions don't actually deliver on that promise. So I think the biggest thing is, it's all well and good to know what you're supposed to do as a good leader. But you gotta look in the mirror a lot, and are you actually delivering on are allowing people to be vulnerable, make mistakes, etc. And there's a big difference between knowing what you should do, and actually doing it. I think that's probably the big, one of the big ones. And I'm learning constantly, I said, on this podcast, we've got fabulous guests in, you know, I listened to some of the things you've just said, and I've gone, I'd forgotten, I gotta go do that. And so you know, it's just a constant reminder. Look in the mirror often, is probably the best piece of advice I've gotten. I don't mean, look in the mirror to see how ugly you are or how old you are, but look in the mirror to see are the actions you're telling yourself you are doing as a good leader, actually, what you're doing.

Daniel Bartels: 46:10

And same question for you, mate. What are the key lessons you reckon you've learned over the last little period?

Ian Barker: 46:17

Yeah, well, first off, I agree with Simon's. But one thing I think, recently, and I've just seen it on LinkedIn, and I'm trying to get better at it is acknowledge, acknowledging differing perspectives, as leaders, and as we get more tenured in our sales career, we define success based on what we did really good, right. And we kind of stay with that we put the blinders on. And we're hyper focused. And sometimes we coach or train to that, what happens is, we start to lose focus on maybe what's going on around us or different beliefs or challenges. And not that you have to agree with them. But take parts from them. Because there's a lot of people that are sharing great advice. And if you can take something from it, and build it into your process and make yours that much better. I think it's super impactful. So I like to look for leaders that kind of allow and invite challenging perspectives. And again, like I said, it's not about it being right. But it's about you sitting down fundamentally understanding what their perspective is, and then saying, hey, you know what, I don't agree with 10% of it. But that 10% was good. I'm going to build that into my my playbook. And here we go. And we're going to be that much better.

Daniel Bartels: 47:19

Yeah, that's, that's a really good point. And it's something to give someone credit for in a couple of years ago, when we work together, to sort of reminisce and look back, look back at our history, someone but, you know, we worked in, we walked into financial force and the team in Australia, talking about the comment, he walked in one day and said, there's a lot of white males in this team. And as we kind of sat down and said, Okay, let's think about diversity. It wasn't let's go and find more females, or, you know, those have a different colour or a different creed, or, you know, sexuality, we actually started to build it into Haley some were selling into the ERP space. So why don't we have someone with we had some with SAP background? Okay, where's that? Where's the Oracle guy? Where, where's our workday person. And we brought, we intentionally went and brought in all these people with differing skills and backgrounds, you know, we brought in someone who had financial experience, we brought in someone who had sold procurement, and actually rounded out the whole team. And then by proxy, we actually, because we were specifically searching these different individuals, we ended up with this really diverse team. So our diversity was by design, not because we were trying to, you know, take a corporate box, we're trying to build a team that brought different perspectives and experiences. So that when anybody was looking at a deal and said, I want to do a deal review, you could bring this like super team in, hey, listen, Oracle will say this, oh, I hadn't thought about that, hey, listen, workday strength like this. I hadn't thought about that. And, and then even if you it was really easy, then for someone to walk in and say, Actually, this isn't the customer we should spend time on. I've got five deals here. You know, these three, they're not our deal. Okay, let's focus on these other two of these, we can do a really good job here. And we can, you know, surprise and delight the customer and grow the deal size, and they'll there'll be fantastic references. But if you didn't know that, as you know, as an AE, looking at your deal cycles, you'd find sometimes their work the largest deals, but they were the most successful ones. And Simon, you know, that was a specific action that you put in place. So probably stole you stole your thunder there a bit. But you know, that's been a big thing. I know you've banged the drum on for a long time. Yeah, look, I

Simon Peterson: 49:33

think diversity is a many, many. Like, there's so many parts to it, right? So there's diversity of background, there's diversity of gender and sexuality and all of that stuff. And I think at its fundamental core, you want to a group of people in a room that have different backgrounds, different perspectives, different experiences, and you're looking at a problem through slightly different lenses. And by God, that outcome is going to be 100 times better than if you've just got a whole bunch of people that have got exactly the same background or same culture, same this and that. Right. So we ended up at that, at that point in time was probably the most gender diverse experience, diverse, age diverse team in the business. And I had many conversations with our employees success about, you know, Simon, your How do you do this and the system matter of just doing it for the business outcome not to take a corporate box and knowing genuinely in your heart, a diverse team is actually going to be more successful than one that looks like yourself. And I think that's it. It's cool.

Ian Barker: 50:43

Yeah, there's nothing more dangerous than walking into a room everyone's agreeing, right? It's just like, hey, yeah, it's like, no, no,

Simon Peterson: 50:48

I've had to that I've never walked into a room and agreed was Dan and

Daniel Bartels: 50:55

I take delight in, in, in being that person in the room.

Ian Barker: 51:02

But it's funny too, because like, I think one of one of the most impactful things in sales is when you lose a deal, and you sit in a room and you're bringing all your colleagues and you guys say, What did I do wrong? And the challenge is, everybody's looks like you and acts like you, you're gonna they're gonna pat me on the back and be like, Great job, gung ho, you tried your best you lost, then you bring in some other people that are from different backgrounds, different financial backgrounds, or ERP or whatnot. And they're like, Well, I would have done this differently, or I would have challenged here, I would have been more multi threaded here. And it's just like, just opens up a world of possibilities on your next deals going forward. And again, yeah, you don't want everybody in the room disagree. Yeah.

Daniel Bartels: 51:37

Look, it's a drawing so many other parts of my life. And I always kind of look at in my my refereeing career, right, something's always gonna go wrong. And again, something is gonna kick you in the shins, right. And I'm actually, and as soon as that thing happens, I'm like, Ah, great. Excellent can be, I know what that thing was now. And now I can resolve that. And it's going to be a great game. I've got some fantastic stories, I'll tell the other day about that. But in in a sales cycle, if you're in a deal, and it's all grain, know that it's not know that you just don't know where it's red. And your job is to actually surface and uncover where it's red. Because every single time I've got, you know, ran through a deal cycle, and it's all perfect, it's all happening. And it's closing, and I've not anywhere near the cycle, solved a problem, or I haven't encountered a roadblock, it's coming. And you don't want to come on the Friday at the end of the quarter in the year when you thought it was going to sign. And you know, you want to and you want to delve in and uncover that. Because if it's not, if you don't know where it is, it's there. And either your your coach or you know, the person you're selling to is trying to solve it by themselves in the background. And they don't know how to solve it. They don't do this for a job, you often have a really simple answer to how to solve that problem. But you've got a person who never does this, running off trying to do it for the first time. And, you know, as we said at the start of this, this podcast, right when you were a BDR, and you're selling for the first time, you failed more than you won. So why would you let them do it by themselves the first time like seek out that problem, find out what it is, then you can help solve it. Now you've got all greenlights to go and do it. If you don't know where it is. It's there somewhere. It's funny, too.

Ian Barker: 53:29

So in the roles that I've taken on recently, being an advisor, and one of them, I've really taken the first opportunity to be the buyer never been the buyer before. And it's so interesting. We think we're really good at selling. And then we get flipped in be the buyer. And I'm kind of looking at the CLB. And like, well, I don't know what questions I need to actually ask you before I jump into this, like, I think I understand what I want, but I don't know what our process is, and things like that. So I always tell people, I speak with him, like, make sure like you own the process. But at the same time, as your coach them try to understand if they have a process because the way that we sell to our customers is probably the process internally we're going to take on. So make sure you're asking the questions like how do you how do your customers buy from you? Help me understand that, because you're gonna find some of those roadblocks that might come out. The actual example in in the spying situation. I went through the the person did a great job, kind of applying them. But like, as I think back on like they didn't really ask the ask critical questions. But they ignored my response. And that was a challenge. One of them was very big, where it came down to, Hey, were $6,000 for a single seat. I said, My gosh, there's no way I can afford that. The other people are one seat for 2000. Because Oh, we buy in bulk. You can't you can't reduce the user count. And I said, Well, that's tough. Right there. We just kept on in the conversation. No to me, like that was the red flag. And we didn't push deeper on it. I mean, he could have probably asked me like, it's tough, but like, hey, given this given the$5,000 Delta, is there value in my product? I don't know if I could Answer down the call. And like just being able to explore a little bit deeper and understand those things, but instead, he's just like, hey, yeah, we'll keep moving forward, we're just gonna get you to the end, I'm gonna hopefully get the verbal and then the deal is gonna fall apart. So I always I was trying to tell people is like, you got to have not the half years, you gotta have the pessimistic ears, right? Where like, you hear something like that? It's like, hold on, hold on pause, there's no way you can move forward, if I'm 6000 in there, 1000? How? How are you going to internally understand how our purchase would make sense? Like, help me understand that, and then I would be able to maybe dive into that. And I probably tell them on the call, Hey, you know what, I can't go with you. Like, you're just too expensive. But instead, we went through the process. And we kind of tagged on a little bit, there was a few calls after that, that personally, me, I knew there probably wasn't going to be a decision there. But I was still holding out for something to happen, where he could have been like, hey, you know what, it was great working with you. But I'm gonna go chase deals that are real. And so it's just like, the tough thing you get from being able to try and understand the deals buying? Yes,

Daniel Bartels: 55:58

sure. Well, then we get into the top of the hour mate. And we kind of wrap up all of these these sessions with, you know, top piece of advice. Love to ask you the same question. You know, we've been through you've been through in your career, stepping into sales, from being a teacher BDR to AE is now leading teams like someone going through those transitions anywhere, what's the what's the one piece of advice you'd leave them with? Yeah, I

Ian Barker: 56:23

think if you're going to come outside, with a different degree, the goal is get in front of people early. If you're looking at a company and you think it's attractive. Reach out to people that are going to be in your role, reach out to the hiring manager, build your own perspective of what that account possibly or that company could possibly provide to you. Don't go into it blind. Don't throw your resume on a table. Make sure that you're reaching out to people in advance and understanding more of like the internal ecosystem of that night.

Daniel Bartels: 56:51

fantastic advice. Well, everybody, thank you so much for joining us on growth pulse the b2b sales podcast. If you are watching us on YouTube, please click subscribe, give us a like and a comment down below. Listening to us on Spotify or Apple or your favourite podcast platform. Please give us five stars. Make a comment if you can on the platform. Share with your friends, the fact that we're here. We're hope you got some value from the call. But then Simon, thanks for joining us. Have a great night.

Ian Barker: 57:22

Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Simon Peterson: 57:24

Thank you, guys.