Empathy and Entrepreneurship: Scaling a Service-Based Company with Special Guest Adam Cordner | GrowthPulse The B2B Sales Podcast Ep14

Strap in as we master the tightrope walk of scaling a service-based company with none other than Adam Cordner. Adam’s rollercoaster journey from a special effects artist to software leader & investor is chock-full of invaluable insights that promise to redefine how you perceive business growth and investment risks. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, an investor, or a curious listener, Adam’s unique perspective, derived from a diverse career and a coffee pod venture, is sure to leave you richer in knowledge and understanding.

Our conversation with Adam not only peels back the layers of his fascinating career journey but also dives deep into the heart of sales strategies and the investor mindset. Imagine owning the power to think like an investor while selling, and using this to help customers buy instead of just selling to them. Intrigued much? We unravel this and more, while also exploring the concept of 'helping people buy' and how that intertwines with customer service to create an unforgettable customer experience. 

In the realm of sales, understanding your customer is the compass that guides your ship. In our enlightening chat with Adam, we navigate the importance of empathy, customer-centricity, and the strategic use of CRM to identify potential customers. We also delve into the realm of disruption, discussing how to bridge the gap between customer expectations and company offerings. By the end of this episode, you'll not only have a new perspective on business growth and sales strategy but also a renewed understanding of your customer's needs. Tune in for an episode brimming with practical tips, transformative insights, and thought-provoking discussions.

Transcript

Adam Cordner: 0:00

Yeah, there's a lot to sort of. You're right, I have frameworks and you know that's probably the OG algorithm. Like, algorithms are not solely for computers. I mean, an algorithm is a recipe for a souffle or anything else. These are the steps.

Daniel Bartels: 0:18

One of the things that I'd learned in sort of you know the 15 years I've been in some CRM and associate in some of the technologies you know. After selling CRM, I sold professional service automation, which is effectively for services companies, a CRM process, Because services businesses have a different problem than product business has. Even in technical and technical business, like a souffle company, services companies have the issue of I've got to hire people or I'm going to have, even if I've got resources that are on retainer or on on-contract, I don't know anything about this. If I've got you remote in my book and you're sitting there doing nothing, then typically you're a cost-advertisement. That's a problem, but I also so, okay, I've got some on the bench, as the term goes. But I've also had the other problem, the other side, which is if I sell more projects than I have capacity for, I do two things I disappoint my customer, which is awful, and then, even worse, I burn my people Because I mean if someone can do 60 hours in a week, they can maybe do 60 hours for a month.

Daniel Bartels: 1:27

What they can't do is typically 60 hours year in, year out, forever. Maybe you've got you know someone will go oh, I do it all the time I'll leave you. There are individuals who choose to do that. If you're building an organization and a business, that's going to take a break, right, so you can't run over over percentage for a long period of time either. So they've got this other problem, just similar to what you're kind of talking about, which is how do I kind of balance the scales as I grow.

Daniel Bartels: 1:56

I've got the right number of people, but I haven't got them sitting on the bench too long because they're not on the bench too long. It costs me money. So behind this is a skill that I've learned to spend a lot of time thinking about. And who would? Salespeople, I think in a lot of what Sierra Leone is doing, salesforce, hubspot, a piece of paper, a doobie sheet, doesn't matter. They put a plan on a page and they put a plan, and the plan on the page might be kind of what you're describing, a singular plan for a singular contact.

Adam Cordner: 2:30

You've got to prepare your customer for what's about to happen and there's an opportunity in there. We certainly look at that. You know there's a lot of fear when you're investing. There's fear too and there's risk is constantly on the table. And I don't come from an investment background, but I'm not a financier. I don't have a banking background, but I know that I can put a dollar value against actual value and if you can increase it and you can put moats around it and there's things you can do to reduce anything happening or diminishing value, then you make money. And again, it's almost like forcing myself to be financially dyslexic, forcing myself to be naive and in it in the room has led me to making much better decisions instead of getting too technical.

Daniel Bartels: 3:26

Welcome to Growth Pulse, the B2B sales podcast. We take a deep dive into the world of business to business, sales and how businesses can get the most out of their investment in salespeople, sales systems and processes the lifeblood of any thriving organization. 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 favor and click, subscribe, follow or like 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. Back to another episode of Growth Pulse, the B2B sales podcast. I'm Dan Bartels, one of your co-hosts. I'm joined as usual by Simon Peterson, my fellow host. Simon, how are you going, buddy?

Simon Peterson: 4:16

Very well, thanks, mate.

Daniel Bartels: 4:17

Good morning.

Simon Peterson: 4:18

Happy Monday.

Daniel Bartels: 4:19

Absolutely Happy Monday. We're recording this on a Monday morning, trying to get the week kicked off. Well, look, we're joined today by one of our long-term friends. A look at absolute sales beast, adam Cordner. Adam, look, welcome to the show, mate.

Adam Cordner: 4:35

I'm so stoked to be here for the Monday. I always say you've got to start the Mondays hard. I don't think this is going to be hard, but you just got to start them. Well, like warming up a car.

Daniel Bartels: 4:48

Absolutely. One of the things I do love about these chats, whenever we do them, whether it's a Monday or Friday, whenever we go is the thoughts it generates, the way it gets us, like even Simon and I, to think about the things we've got to be adding back into our businesses. Look, adam, we've known you for a long time, simon, longer than I have. We've all worked together at different stages, but you've done some really interesting things in your career. You've worked in Big Tech. You've run small companies. You've opened a coffee pod business, which was an absolute left turn. Look, mate, for the benefit of our listeners, give them the 10 cent tour of your background and your journey in sales.

Adam Cordner: 5:29

Look. The condensed version is I don't think I've changed. I just participate in different sports. I think that's the best way to think. I've had the same methodologies, same successes and same fears across all the different disciplines, like at the Catholic. It's the same person. What I do right now.

Adam Cordner: 5:51

I've got a company called Cold Start. We began as a services business for e-commerce companies. We learned a shitload of lessons from the pod company. We made every mistake Some hilarious, we can go into those Some catastrophic, some incredible. We documented the whole lot with my business partner, yanni. With the lessons, we started selling the lessons.

Adam Cordner: 6:16

Basically, we were able to guide other e-commerce businesses get out of the same pitfalls. An Instagram photograph is a waste of time. You should be focusing on profit and loss and all these other things. Then, from there, we have become an investment bank. We've been able to see companies that we like and think are only going to be on the right trajectory and take a position, take an equity position or take a fund position in those. Then we're branching into venture capital. Now it looks small on the surface. That's the whole point. We call it Cold Start because we've got this injection of energy, strategy, operations and finance that we can get these guys going from a standing start. We do all these things to get them going. Then we look to exit once it gets. We say once we get to a certain critical mass or hurdle rate, but when we're bored the second we're bored we're like all right. See ya, that's been it.

Adam Cordner: 7:21

Previous to that, lock downs swung around. I had stepped away from my time as a solution consultant at Domo. I was looking for the next thing. I will never be one of these people that say I always wanted to run my own business. I didn't. I wanted to have a lot of fun, keep skateboarding, keep playing ice hockey and figure out a way to fund it all. Then I had a daughter. I've got certain levels of responsibility now.

Adam Cordner: 7:54

Through the cafe it's a little coffee story I met probably the best businessman I've ever met. He just knows how to run a business. At that time it was a cafe but he ran it like a corporation. It was incredible. He's like a COO and CEO. It was incredible. Tough times, lock down swings around and he's going to be decimated in the city cafe, just heavy-handed lock downs.

Adam Cordner: 8:26

We could make this thing a viral way, given our opinions on lockdown and COVID and so on. He's like mate, how am I going to sell coffee in a lockdown? What am I going to do? Then he came to me with the idea for it. I went, my software brain and my fund brain worked together and went all right, why don't we just sell coffee online like a subscription? It seems to be the gap in the market. With pod coffee is good fucking coffee. Why don't we have an actual good coffee in the pod? It took off from there, then one step back from that. Yeah, with all the biggies. Solution consultant and account manager you guys know me better than most. That would sit on a podcast, helve a lot of energy, have a lot of fun, whether it was in front of clients or at sales kickoffs. I think I was wreaking havoc from the dance floor to the Zoom calls.

Simon Peterson: 9:37

You were right. I remember when I first met you, mate I think that was back in our inside sales days at SAP, I think hadn't we just pulled you away from a career as a makeup artist or something along those lines, into the?

Adam Cordner: 9:53

world.

Simon Peterson: 9:54

Yeah.

Adam Cordner: 9:55

I wanted to get the special effects.

Adam Cordner: 9:57

Yeah, I wanted to get the special effects Just because I'm a huge Star Wars fan and loved it. Anyway, there's no short story. I wrapped up an ice hockey career, figured out that being Australian and small probably wasn't going to transcend to North America for too long. Well, so I came back to Australia and then started understating a couple of special effects. Guys at Fox Studios Got right into it. This is right before.

Adam Cordner: 10:35

So this is my first experience in a tech revolution or something that something new in a market. That was disruptive, yep, and we were doing monster masks and special effects, but physical ones, yep. So you know, like sculpting latex and airbrushing faces and so on, and that was great for about a year before CGI came in after Star Wars and crushed it. That was it. I mean only now that it's come back. And so the only work that I was getting I started getting tapped on the shoulder for catwalks and magazines and stuff. I'd never done anything like that, but I think because of my training, was not.

Adam Cordner: 11:19

I had no interest in beauty, I had no interest in makeup, but I knew aesthetically what to do and I knew and I'll find out later on one of the reasons why. But I knew that I had a very. I had a skill in conveying a message, whether it's visually or might be verbally or in a presentation, and that translated really well. But I hated it. I hated the industry. I just felt so out of place and I just it's full of wankers and it just wasn't really me. And then it was in a small. I started a small business with a couple of mates doing sports cars in a bit of time share Again, one of the first ones. So the first disruption was tech CGI. The second disruption was we started a business that relied heavily on businesses having a huge expense account and then the GFC hit.

Adam Cordner: 12:15

I was spat out of that.

Adam Cordner: 12:18

And the thing that remained was I built a shared calendar using Dreamweaver and a couple of relational Excel files at the time to make a shared calendar, and that's the thing that stood. And I started shopping that around and, the long story short, I ended up through a back door at Microsoft and then after that, that's how I met Peterson.

Adam Cordner: 12:46

And I think Peterson and I just we had I remember loosely the interview which is thinking I don't know what you're going to do here.

Adam Cordner: 12:53

I'm like I've got this, but I don't know what. But I think it's going to be fun and it was pivotal because what came out of that was I wasn't I don't think I was wired for sales in a what was then a traditional sense. It's certainly changed and it fits me now. But what came out of that was Simon and the team identified that I had a way of communicating. I had a way of presenting. I was contrarian in my business approach.

Adam Cordner: 13:25

Probably contrarian in that I used to sit there. I mean, I remember one day someone said ask me if my parents or who, why parents worked there, Cause I looked like I might've just dropped in for work experience.

Adam Cordner: 13:40

All that, I was the IT guy, but everyone at SAP knew that Fred was the IT guy and Fred and I looked like we might've actually grown up in the same neighborhood. But that was probably a pivotal moment after working with Simon and seeing the team from there and sort of taking control of what I think was the next evolution in software sales, cause there was spin and spin was. You know, spin was spin but the value engineering and the solution selling, I think, took the forefront. And then Simon went moved on and it was boring and I was getting performance reviewed for not wearing suits and whatever else, I got busted.

Adam Cordner: 14:26

I got busted skateboarding in the car park and they wouldn't let me back in the building. The security guy would let me back in the building and I was pleading with him, telling him oh, I can't work here, man, it was just my lunch break, I'm just having a cause.

Adam Cordner: 14:37

there was a really good service ramp, but in the back underneath you know, the car park underneath, I know.

Adam Cordner: 14:46

And then that's when exact targets sort of came knocking and I transitioned fully then into presales and again, you know, I think that culturally was about the right time, I think, when it wasn't about corporate force but it was about the customer, and I think that's what. That's what sort of changed from there. But yeah, started in makeup and now I mean I could go back into it. There's a couple of investments we're looking at. We'll see.

Daniel Bartels: 15:18

Well, I think the thing I just heard out of your story then, mate, is, and you say you know you didn't think of yourself as a salesperson when you were a makeup but like the things that jumped out of that for me is you were, you've always had this ability to look creatively at a problem. And all the way back from makeup, how do you turn someone as ugly as me into you know, monster makeup and think about that transformation and that change? And you know, I know you and I have worked together as I'm a salesperson. You're the creative person being a solution engineer and the ability to look at a problem and say, hey, how can I use our tool sets and really focus on the outcome that that customer wants and make change. And I think that's the core of any not just great entrepreneur, but any good salesperson is like how do you focus on, you know, the real outcome that someone wants, not what you're trying to sell them. You know talking about your pod business. It's okay, you know the market changed for everybody. You know on a dime. But at the end of the day, there's a problem that customers have, which is they want good coffee. Okay, well, we sell good coffee. We've got great relationships with. You know great roasters and all this type of stuff.

Daniel Bartels: 16:31

Okay, well, now I, deliberately, is going to have to change. What's that look like? How do I build a system and a process to make that work? I mean, that was one of the things that struck me when we worked together was you always had really good structures around how you wanted to think about a problem, and maybe some of that goes almost back to your, your make. Like you know sort of other things you've done, which is, I know I've got to build the layers up. I can't just start at the end and work at what I've actually got to go through the steps and the processes. So you know, I want to sort of pivot to the work you're doing now.

Daniel Bartels: 17:02

And obviously, out of the pod business, I know you kind of launched some software products. But in that, like, how have you thought about the sales process? You know a lot of our listeners, you know they're salespeople, they're out there to day to day. You know treading the boards, treading the pavements, et cetera, in that core sales process, how do you think about, you know, growing. You know an organization when you built it from scratch, cause, as I use. We own, like, we own our territory, we own our businesses, right. How do you think about that process, of that core sale piece?

Adam Cordner: 17:35

Yeah, there's a lot to sort of. You're right, I have frameworks and you know that's probably the OG algorithm. Like algorithms are not solely for computers. I mean, an algorithm is a recipe for a souffle or anything else. It's. These are the steps and AI, funnily enough, is just that algorithm being run a million times per second to figure out all the possible variations and so on.

Adam Cordner: 18:01

And so if you think about it as I run a series of algorithms and that they're just things that work and it kind of you know, if you run the rat through the maze enough, it just figures it out and knows the direction to go, the path of least resistance. And so I think it's important to be lazy and like be lazy in your sales is trying it to the point. So empathy is the first one. See, like just remove yourself completely from quota and you know you've got to follow up with your sales manager and what can a sandbag go on into next month? And you know CRM vanity metrics, like what can I do to look good until my hope strategy plays out? And move to just chat to a business and I use the acronym CVS to BVS and I'm sure I'm stalling it. But that's current view of the situation to the better view of the situation, and I think that they think just asking that it's like all right.

Adam Cordner: 18:58

So currently, what? So what's a better view? So tell me the better view and instead of thinking immediately about the sale, you empathize and you sit with them at the better view and go okay, so we'll look like this and you would have this much revenue potentially, and you'd have these other challenges to okay, what would it feel like to be in that position and what do I have to do? And then you just work backwards. So it's like, okay, so really what we're doing here is we're looking at margin, and so, in order to improve margin, we need to sell the product, we need to price the product in a way that is profitable not always easy and then we need to land the product at a lower rate to help one margin, because pricing is not always about going over. It's looking at raw materials or efficiencies to try and get the gap from there and then go right. In order to do that, we do this and go okay. So here's the solution. We've got a system that will allow you to bulk order product or take advantage of, say, shipping, or we could get more efficient with the materials, and we're gonna improve margin there Also, with what we do on the front end being improvements to your landing page, improvements to your advertising and so on will increase the volume and which will align with the pricing. And here's the plan for that.

Adam Cordner: 20:28

And then, before you know it, you're executing on the plan and so I don't think it was ever so much like recently. The last at least three to five years it's not been a sale as much as it's been an agreement for growth. Hence why investing makes sense. When you see a good business and go, if you just execute this plan, you're gonna grow, would you consider investment and so on, and I think that's the value approach. And then you have to go back to your office and go all right, we need some contracts, we need to demonstrate it, we need to put together a business plan that the board can review and sign it all off and do all the sales stuff.

Adam Cordner: 21:07

But for me, the sales mechanics or the sales process, is the admin of the deal. The selling is being empathetic and letting them you guys together like you don't buy a slab of cement, you buy the house that you want, and if you go in selling a slab of cement, you can never visualize. So you might be the best slab of cement, but if you're not helping them visualize what the house is gonna look like at the end. Then you just gonna be in a war with it, whereas if you're able to align with the architects and go, okay, this is the ultimate vision for it. I can certainly feel what it's gonna be like to be in this house. In the current economic market, we feel that it might be worth you guys are still in Sydney. So like $50 million, whatever it is.

Adam Cordner: 21:58

You can get a house here for a Sydney coffee, but if you look at it that way, then you go right, I know what value is and I know the delta between value and our costs, and if the value of it is greater than the cost of the solution and you understand margin, then that's how we've been selling. And look, I do it for $49 a month. Customers, it's the same thing. Like where do you see yourself? Like, why are we actually doing this To? $250,000, $350,000 deals is the same thing. It's just about empathizing and then drawing a map back. So CVS to BVS is something that I constantly go as a format.

Simon Peterson: 22:42

Yeah, I love it. It's interesting. I think you certainly nailed one of the core things I bang on about all the time, and that's empathy, putting yourself in the shoes of the person that's got to make the decision, got to solve the problem, wants to see life better tomorrow than it is today, et cetera, and I think I mentioned this many times on the podcast. It's got to be about empathy. It's got to be about putting yourself in the shoes of the person that's got to solve the problem. It's simple psychology.

Adam Cordner: 23:12

And you know what hell some of the empathy is. You can always like I was thinking about this with my daughter watching her on a scooter. She's full lying around on it. Like you know, I've had a reputation for maybe taking like a wheelie chair down through the middle of North Sydney two fast ones, certainly, no fear. But her experience is that she hasn't stacked it hard enough to really form any kind of reservation yet, and you know you do it as a parent. But you know she's a bit smaller in a stature like me. I imagine she's got a better sense center of gravity, but she hasn't stacked it yet.

Adam Cordner: 23:53

And so the way certainly my sales brignmanship now is improved, because I've been a business owner and it's incredible what you, like I was saying early on in our sort of as we're testing out the mics you in a bigger company you tend to believe you become cultured. You know it's. I think it's almost like every company has an accent. I know when someone's come from one of the biggies because they've got an accent and you can sort of go right, you know you've come from there. You've come from there because that's how you behave and so you forget your customers don't speak your language and so on.

Simon Peterson: 24:38

So what do they want to?

Adam Cordner: 24:41

That's it.

Adam Cordner: 24:42

Yeah.

Adam Cordner: 24:43

It was incredible to me, after running a big company and now continuously as it evolves into a significant capital beast, is what I give a shit about, is so misaligned with what so many software reps come to me with. It's so so misaligned Like one thing that really mattered to me at a certain point in time was how fast I could pack a box, because I was packing like. We had one promotion we screwed up massively where we forgot to put a limit on how many people could order free coffee, and so everyone did.

Adam Cordner: 25:25

So we were packing boxes. Man, it was like printing it, printing like the printer ran out of.

Adam Cordner: 25:31

I didn't think a printer could the heat printers but we'd burn it out. We're packing boxes. My hands were fucked because of the. You know everything was cutting on it or whatever. I needed to ship product and I had a software rep bang on about getting lower rates and I went you're missing the point, man. Yeah, like I'll pay more if you get your ass down to the warehouse with me and learn how to use the tape gun. And so get this. My solution came from a kid, came from a solution consultant who recommended a faster tape gun.

Adam Cordner: 26:11

And that, that and that was like that was worth more to me than then signing up to a new shipping service and so on.

Adam Cordner: 26:17

So you know whether you, if you've got, if you've got the Cajones to go and start your own business, or a side hustle for nothing more than then some type of some type of MBA. Like, if you want to get an MBA, run a fucking business. Don't, yeah, don't bother with the MBA, because you will learn very quickly what you've got to do to achieve cash flow. You'll understand the emotion of not being paid on an invoice.

Daniel Bartels: 26:47

I've said this so many times right. And then, like you know, I ran my own company before I joined sales force and, like, I did an MBA before that as well, and I Learned more in owning my own company that I ever learned working, working, working or doing an MBA. When you've got the pressure of making Payroll on a Friday, you work this stuff out. You work it out real fast in terms of like, okay, literally, how can I ensure I've got enough cash, I'm earning enough money from each of my transactions? I work out what my costs are. You know if I'm looking at Understanding the, the margin on a deal. You find the right suppliers. You pull the products that don't work. You know we were doing field service. You stop servicing areas. They don't make any money. You say no to customers. I mean say no. Like that's one of the key ones that I think people in in sales as a, as an employee, forget about. It's really okay to say no.

Adam Cordner: 27:55

I Double down on that and say no is the most critical word in business. Yeah, at both sides. Yeah, I, transparently, I had a reputation in some companies for killing deals, yep, and, and it's true because I've got a reputation Professionally. The unprofessional one's different but like the professional reputation is, is you know, some of my cost? I've got a customer who was a customer of mine at Microsoft, sap sales force and Domo, yep Same guy and then even became a customer of Potify, yep, because it was, it was, and I backed him out of a deal before and said, look, I think this is wrong.

Adam Cordner: 28:46

I think it's, it's great for a sales number, but I think it's wrong and I struggled with that at. You know some of the bigger branded sort of companies where I would go in and I would be uncertain go, you could spend the money on this, but I think, yeah, your targets off, I think you're gonna waste money. So instead of trying to improve marketing, you spend the money on the product, because a good product he's going to, he's going to help you measurably Compared to trying to get your marketing down. So I'd prefer you to get your product right and then talk to us and that would kill a deal, but it wouldn't kill a company, and I think that's the important thing, like I don't want to be Reputation for recommending the wrong thing and backing it out and I think, yeah, as people get, it's an interesting experience where and as a salesperson and you know you were a solution consultant for a period and obviously you've gone on you, when you're running a company mate, you're the number one salesperson, that's, that's the deal.

Daniel Bartels: 29:46

So kind of the experience that people go through is Are we trying to close a deal that is not natural to close? And Sometimes there's a component of getting a customer of this is like this is the problem that solves this. And yes, we've got some issues, which is you need a faster tape gun, 100%. But once you solve the tape gun problem, you've got to get the boxes out of the warehouse and you now need to be able to tell Oz post or your shipping company Fast enough to get the truck trucks there. So, even if I solve the tape gun problem for you, all that's doing is pushing the problem like one step down the chain. It's a tape gun and it's software and it's a bunch of things to solve it right. And it doesn't matter what you're selling, it's something transport, oh, it doesn't matter.

Daniel Bartels: 30:31

Sometimes you've got to push a customer. Think at the whole problem and you know You've got to be able to challenge them and think around, kind of that, that bigger piece which is look at the whole issue that that is in front of you, look at, I mean, this is what kind of what you guys are doing now from a capital perspective. Right, this is where your company can go. This is, with the right tools, the right assets, the right resources, kind of what happens next. And I think that's a really crucial part of if you are genuinely focused on their outcome. You're giving them good advice, saying, hey, listen, you need to buy my software, but there's no pop point by my transport Logistic software until I solve the cake tape gun problem. I want to win that deal, but I also don't want to. I don't want to have you as a smelly customer and I think you know whether you're working for any organization, software or otherwise, with your own, your own company.

Daniel Bartels: 31:22

When you, when you genuinely put a customer in the center of the conversation and you look at their business, then you can start to do some things. And this is where I think it's interesting all the different Methodologies right, your challenger and others. And and I always thought you're a bit of a challenge, I just, in the way you operated, right, a bit of a challenger salesperson, but it isn't challenges actually the wrong word for it, it's. It's about you thinking holistically about a problem and genuinely showing a customer there are. There are multiple ways to get there and In business there's no guarantees and sometimes you need to take big swings. So the big swings that you need to go and take, look like this Take them, don't take them. Hey, it's interesting.

Adam Cordner: 32:03

It's my advice to anyone maybe like midway through, or just just getting there, getting their groove on with like account management, yeah, is you. You should be selling like an investor. Yes, because I I brought I found out I was dyslexic in my very early 30s and it explains so much because I was forced then to always think laterally and creatively to solve the problem. And, you know, sometimes it was easier for me to convey a very simple message than try and wade through you know, yeah, huge documents and so on. But think of it like this we always talk about ROI, right, and it's literally return. So define Return like we just say what the ROI is like. Well, hang on, where are you hanging your ROI? Because ROI for me Might be earnings per share, roi. You know, the after me could be more time Just the are, like don't forget the are and then don't forget the investment. So how I and I'm gonna say how I sell for the last time and I'll go into why I don't say it so much yeah, is I approach Every opportunity has an investment going in.

Adam Cordner: 33:27

What I'm trying to do here is so the way we invest is this it's part financial capital and it's part sweat equity and and it's it's. It's a legal way to boost a stock or Enhancer company. It's the legal way, and the way that we do it is. You look at the company and go okay, I've identified your strengths and I've seen the weaknesses. I'm calling them out as deficiencies. Yeah, so your deficiencies fits well with what we've got as sales marketing resources. So we're willing to give you the resources. And what does that do? It increases the value of the business and it increases the value on our Investment. If we can quite literally increase the value of the business by putting sweat equity in, then it grows and then I win and we all win.

Adam Cordner: 34:17

Software it should be the same and I don't. I think that gets a little bit lost and you're looking at features. But if you were to invest in that company and Then go right, I'm going to invest for two reasons. One is if you, if I put this software in, it will increase the value across whatever line of business yeah, therefore, if I was a shareholder, is this solution the right solution? Yeah, versus, you've got a marketing director and we are a product for marketing and it's great for them, and so on. But then the moment you think about it going. Okay. My solution is this and it's an investment and we should be getting the return altogether, then the question isn't about how much is the cost, it's how much can I get? Yep, and it's rare that the one thing that we get asked from an investment perspective is we get asked for a load of capital and sweat equity and then we negotiate the equity so they want as much of us as they possibly can get, as much capital and as much of us as they could possibly get, because we're our premises value and we can empathize with the business and where that company could potentially grow to.

Adam Cordner: 35:33

I don't see that a lot in software sales of people going. We want to invest. The best way for us to invest is to put the software in and we'll come along in the journey and then, whether or not you can negotiate it or whether or not you've got that free cash flow, invest, take a position and maybe that investment is offering a concession so that you can get a longer relationship in the software. And then the other thing that reminds me as I'm going through that is, the biggest lesson I learnt was from Yanni, my business partner in Coffey, who's now out.

Adam Cordner: 36:09

He's one of, if not the best digital marketer in CMO I've ever seen, who does not come from a traditional background because he actually understands customers at a very low level was the concept of helping people buy instead of selling, and that revolutionized the way I thought. What does he mean by that? Well, I started with you know, I described how I would do a transaction and he's like it's like the cafe and so, depending on how you get the lead, if the lead comes to you, they want a solution. No one wastes their time in a business day trying to get into a sales cycle. Yeah, that's true, you're just not going to do it. So give them some respect and back off, a bit like going into a shop.

Adam Cordner: 37:04

And this goes down to the hospitality over customer service methodology that we have. Yanni is a student of what's called the hospitalian in that customer service and sales should be a feeling. It should be an emotion and a feeling, not a process. And when it's done right, people pay premiums and when it's done right, people transact and so on. So moving from selling to them to help them buy is the most transformative part of our entire sales engagement, because all we do is help people buy. We learned that with coffee, nothing we could do but make it very easy to buy. We explained what it was, we took them through the process and then we just made it easy to buy. The same thing with the services that we did for the software companies that we're involved with and so on, is we just make it easy, and that's by structuring the services and giving a bit to get and so on.

Adam Cordner: 38:02

We're there to help you buy, and I often think about probably more going to get a suit. Or you walk in. You don't walk into a suit store because you got nothing else to do. I mean, I'm not obviously a huge suit wearer, but from there I'm there because I need a suit. Yeah, 100%. So help me, take the measurements, ask me what it's for and so on. Would you like some water? Okay, extra pants, I'm going to buy. Going to buy? Yes, and I think that mental shift from can I help you buy this and can I do it in a way where I feel as if I'm investing in the growth of the business, those two components completely flip the traditional what I think is account management and selling of trying to take you through the features and functions and trying to game it along and trying to discount the bejesus out of it to get to transaction.

Daniel Bartels: 39:02

I think there's two ways to think about that problem. So there is absolutely use case for people who are in a market to do things Right. Yep, I've walked into a suit store, I've run a software company, I've come to your website or however, I've got there Right. But there's also another side of that equation, which is people don't know this is a solution to a problem, sometimes till they see, hey, did you know this is a problem and did you know there's a way to solve that? Otherwise, I keep persevering back to your example before with the shit tape gun, and I just can't scale. I can't get through this problem. So I think like there are two pieces, but there isn't.

Daniel Bartels: 39:39

There is one reality that is universal. You cannot force anybody to do something you don't already want to do. It just doesn't work Right. I mean all of those who have got partners or friends. You can't. You can't force your mate to come to the pub if he doesn't want to go. You can't do it Right, that's it. He's just not going to turn up. I'm married and I've given up trying to force my wife to do anything. Just doesn't want to go on holidays. We're not going, you know like doesn't want to go to dinner tonight. We're not having dinner Like that's just and that's okay.

Daniel Bartels: 40:12

And I think in sales you've got to have that same understanding, which is, yeah, we can fill both buckets. Customers were in a market and that's and. But even then they may not be in the market that you're in and you might not solve their problem. So people are going to say no and exit those conversations early. But you can also and sometimes I think you can find the biggest value buckets for those where you say, hey, listen, I've done a whole bunch of research and we've got a bunch of customers that are just like you or we're building a solution to fill this problem. I want to talk to you about it. You're a business that should have capital, should have some other people. That brings them extra skills. Can we talk to you about that? Some of those are your best deals.

Daniel Bartels: 40:52

But the thing that you can never force them to do and I think salespeople get caught on these and you know, as a sales leader, I've seen this on I don't know how many times as a sale when you get hammered by those stinky deals that are in your pipeline. You've held on for too long and you know you're, you're, you're concerned about getting them out and moving on, and this customer has no interest in this whatsoever. You know, again, using your take on experience, you're trying to sell the bloke and you're racking and he's like dude, 100%, I need racking, except it is so far down my list of stuff to fix. That's a two year away problem. I can deal with that problem like this. It's easier and cheaper for me to go and talk to the. You know, rent a space, bloke up the road and shift some pallets around. Yep, it's going to be twice as expensive, however, in cash, the time and effort of shutting the warehouse down and putting you back, I just can't do it. And we do need to do it and we will get there, but it's not today. Great, it's dead. Come back, schedule the conversation, come back in 18 months time. Hey, mate, we talked about it. There's a new way, there's a new methodology of not shutting your warehouse down and putting you racking in and off we go, and mate couldn't have called me at a better time.

Daniel Bartels: 42:14

But I think people really struggle with like that conversation of saying, hey, listen, that one's not going to happen. And then the worst, the worst fault that I see that salespeople get into is they think that that deal cycle went for three years? No, it didn't. That deal got lost, closed. Lost, it's okay, it's good Close it and then we open it. It's good when you can't assume that any customer you're talking to remembers anything you said to them two years ago. The people might have changed. They're not thinking about your product. They don't remember. I mean, they know you, they remember you. Hey, thanks for coming in Adam. But they don't remember the conversation, and nor should they. So you start from scratch again. Sometimes you start further back from scratch because, hey, why did? Why did we not buy this last time? Well, there must be a reason we didn't buy this. So you've got to go further back than last time and like that's a real challenge I see salespeople and organizations struggle with. Is it's like okay, get to the end, I know.

Adam Cordner: 43:12

This is a couple of bits in which we have to fill a pipeline, Because a lot of the I mean it's predominantly a services business. So we charge for a service and that service costs me because there's all the contractors and people that go into that business and if we make an investment, that investment won't. I mean, it's not you know, it's not Bitcoin we're going to lose all your money quickly, or make money quickly and then lose it again. It's four years, five years down the track that we might realize the gains that spread. So the way in which we manage it is in the calendar, because that you just, if the calendar's full with and that's it like just go out there and help people understand what they need to need to do in their business and then our, our hit rate is low, because I'd rather sit there and they'll go. You know, what we really need is we need investment for capital machinery because we need to dig, you know, a more coal out of the ground and all whatever else it is, and then we can go. Hey, this has been such an eye opener. Not for us. And so the tables to turn when you think about it as an investor is your pipeline is just full of.

Adam Cordner: 44:29

What goes into CRM is people that are likely to transact. No one else is in there, because if they're in the CRM and they're likely to transact, it's just quicker to get the paperwork out. But hope's not in there, Like what's traditional, like phase one, you know discovery, and it's like no, like have you spoken to them and do you really understand what they're trying to do as a business and what they're going to do with our services? And that flips it. And so what we've become is the people. We're the people that come into, want to buy from, and so we become a broker as well.

Adam Cordner: 45:03

It's like, hey, I know you don't do this, but do you know a guy and we go through a you? Why? Because you understand where the business is going and we can't. For example, we can't get capital because our banker won't see what you see, which is the adoption of a good sales methodology, the adoption of a good website, the digital strategy or grow business, so can you operate and so on, and I think, again, that goes all the way back to you know our time of sales force and really understanding that. I might not have been across every single deal, but the ones that I was on were potent, high value and were clients for life. And then, when I transitioned to Domo and I had the fortune of aligning with an account manager with the same philosophy, we were left to our own. We didn't have a thick, you know, pipeline of six phases. They weren't bluebirds, they were just deals would disappear, Yep.

Daniel Bartels: 46:06

Yeah, one of the things that I learned in sort of you know the 15 years I've been in sort of CRM and associated sort of technologies. You know, after selling CRM I sold professional service automation, which is effectively for services companies a CRM process, because services businesses have a different problem than a product business, has even an intangible product business like a software company. So services companies have the issue of I've got to hire people or I'm going to have. Even if I've got resources that are on retainer or on contract, right, I only use them when I spend them. If I've got you in my book and you're sitting there doing nothing, then typically you're a cost to the business and that's a problem. But I also so okay, I've got someone on the bench, as the term they use. Then I also have the other problem, the other side, which is if I sell more, more projects than I have capacity for, I do two things I disappoint my customer, which is awful, and then, even worse, I burn my people because no, I mean, someone can do 60 hours in a week. They can maybe do 60 hours for a month. What they can't do is typically 60 hours year in, year out, forever. Maybe you've got someone will go. I do it all the time. There are individuals who choose to do that. If you're building an organization and a business, if that's the expectation, it breaks right. So you can't run over over percentage for a long period of time either. So they've got this other problem, which is similar to what you're kind of talking about, which is how do I kind of balance the scales as I grow. I've got the right number of people, but I haven't got them sitting on the bench too long because they're on the bench too long. It cost me money. But behind this is, as a skill that I've learned to spend a lot of time thinking about, and good salespeople, I think no matter what serum they're using with us Salesforce, hubspot, a piece of paper, a Google sheet, doesn't matter they put a plan on a page and they put a plan.

Daniel Bartels: 48:11

And the plan on the page might be kind of what you're describing a singular plan for a singular contact. Hey, you're coming to us asking for capital because you want to be able to dig more holes, because I don't know, you put power poles and whatever it is you do right, and you want to be able to double the number of holes you can dig and if you had a better digger, phenomenal, amazing. Okay, talk me through the details of that plan, talk me through the customers that support the revenue stream that makes that happen, and you're kind of you know, and translating what your role is in that is hey, here's the plan of what we're going to do here and everyone gets together and understands and pulls the eyes out. Here's the problems, here's the issues. Here's where it doesn't align.

Daniel Bartels: 48:57

You're selling this product to Adam. It's not what we want to do. We actually don't want someone to come into our business, we just want cash and you can go. Actually, that's not us. All those things kind of align. But I think when you're looking at sales systems, there's no one sales system that fits every company. You've got to fit the solution and the model to what you're going to do as a business. And sometimes you're an AE and the global, like the holistic system for your business, doesn't actually fit how you work. But that's okay. But understand, just have a system, don't do nothing.

Adam Cordner: 49:33

I was a serial offender in not updating sales systems serial offender, but I got away with it because I was selling, and so it's like, where are you guys putting your value here?

Adam Cordner: 49:52

And then it's because of dyslexia.

Adam Cordner: 49:54

I don't want to sit there all day and go well, this is why the deal is like no, it just sort of happens, it was naivety, came across as arrogance, and that it worked. The way that we, what we get involved with now, is so multifaceted. So we've got a customer at the moment who and we're in look, I won't go into details because we're a private company, but it's a consumer app. Nice war, I'd never go into apps Because every the moment you say venture capital and investment, everyone with an app comes across. And I've got an app that gives it's a personality test for pets or whatever else, and you're like, nah, it's not for me, and then understand it. But then this one app comes across our table and I've looked at it and gone, shit, it's good because I'm using it. It's like, wow, this is amazing.

Adam Cordner: 50:57

So in order for me to invest, I don't need to understand about that business, I need to understand about the consumer. So we call, we imagine a lens. So we imagine, like a literal camera, zoom lens. And we constantly go through it as a team and say, right, zoom in, zoom out, double click, right click. Or I'm a Mac guy, so it's like pension, expand or whatever. So zooming out is the most overlooked tool in B2B SaaS sales. Like get over yourself, get over your contacts role, zoom right out and have a look at the company. Now, if the business is B2B, understand their consumer. Like understand where software that sells to construction Okay Well, you don't need to understand software, you need to understand construction. And once you understand construction, go all right, we can improve your solution so that you're better over here, so that you can do payroll at three o'clock, get to the TAB instead of do payroll at five o'clock and miss out on happy hour. Like understanding the consumer is everything and it might not be valuable in the immediate transaction, but you start to inherit the accent of your customer instead of the accent of the company that you're representing. So we zoom in and zoom out and then you zoom right in and go does the zoomed in micro lens affect the macro out here and customer? And if they don't work, you might get a sale, but you're not going to get a renewal, you're not going to get a long-term relationship, and that's how we have to think now. And so we could start a coffee business again from scratch. No problem, if someone wants to get into it. It's drug dealing legally because everyone needs it and it's widely competitive. But then you need to understand your consumer. And it looks like we started the business as an e-commerce business and so on, and we were successful because Yanni and myself might be charismatic and we know coffee and we advertised correctly.

Adam Cordner: 53:13

But the truth of it was, when we launched the product, our own opinions of coffee. When we tasted it, we were sat with the roast through and we were drinking it. We thought it was fantastic. But to the common denominator, people were like, oh, this is too sweet, this tastes like berries, this doesn't like, it's nice, but it doesn't taste like coffee. And then the light bulb moment that we had was we need to make coffee that tastes like coffee. Silly as that sounds, because, believe it or not, in Australia we call ourselves the coffee aficionados. Instant coffee is the biggest consumed coffee in the country, in the world, in our country, really, we drink blend 43 and international roasts more than any other form of coffee. It doesn't even come close. It could be wrong.

Daniel Bartels: 54:09

My father-in-law is still a massive blend 43 guy. It frustrates me. When he comes over and I've got this super expensive coffee machine, he goes ah, just get me some hot water and a spoon.

Adam Cordner: 54:18

Are you a two scooper? Are you a one?

Daniel Bartels: 54:19

scooper. But it is part of that, that's a critical part of being a salesperson, understanding your customer. Just because you've got a and this is where I think so many startups fail They've got the best idea known to man, except no one wants to buy it. So people talk about how they might fit. And you've got this concept of okay, well, can you adjust your product to actually suit what your market wants? Or how much can you push the market to change their expectations of what's possible and come to what you're building? I mean, there are so many Like that's disruption.

Daniel Bartels: 54:58

But there are a lot of chicken shops make money. It's been a long time since somebody's reinvented chicken shops. They're on a rotisserie. They turn around, they eat, they cook, you eat, you sell them and look, I can put some extra basting on and I can make my shop look a bit nice. It's still a rotisserie chicken, right. They make money. That's okay and that's perfectly fine.

Daniel Bartels: 55:21

So if you're a salesperson, if you're standing behind the counter at a chicken shop and you know somebody will listen to, one go. Hey, how's this relate to me, your point before? If you're sitting inside the machine inside a software company, inside a telco, inside a car yard. Hey, you're similar to being in a chicken shop, like that model of sale is systematic. But sometimes you've got to go there and say and Tesla's a good example in the car industry. Right, we don't want you to own the car, we want you to subscribe to the car. Okay, we don't want you to have a petrol car, we want you to charge the thing. In fact, we want you to buy solar panels and never pay for input. That's disrupting and changing a marketplace and it doesn't mean you're disruption because you think it's a good idea is going to make sense.

Adam Cordner: 56:06

You've got to prepare your customer for what's about to happen and there's an opportunity in there. We certainly look at that. Yeah, you know there's a lot of fear. When you're investing is fear too, and there's risk is constantly on the table.

Adam Cordner: 56:22

And I don't come from an investment background, but I, you know, I'm not a financier, I don't have a banking background, but I know that I can put a dollar value against actual value and if you can increase it and you can put moats around it and there's things you can do to reduce anything happening or diminishing value, then you make money. And again, it's almost like forcing myself to be financially dyslexic, forcing myself to be naive and the idiot in the room has led me to making much better decisions Instead of getting too technical, because no, and you're right, there's no. That's why I prefer to help people buy rather than sell, because I can't tap the card for my customer and the responsibilities on them. And once you put the responsibility on them and you manage your sales pipeline in a way, I've got people with paper work. Then I'm reminding them of value and the time bound value that's getting away from us and an excited team that's ready to work with them. They come in thick and fast and what we were in a scenario where we've turned away to clients the last two, three weeks because we're at capacity and we're spread across software, b2b software, actual physical consumer goods this one here is a venue application. So, again, consumer goods, and we're now in final stages of looking at a medical company for a complete acquisition. This will be our first acquisition and it has consumers.

Adam Cordner: 58:11

So, just like I had a sales career that's chopped around, the only thing that's consistent is your yourself and the methodologies that you use to go through it, and I think you grab a lot of those as you go through different organizations and so on. But I think it comes down to this it's the type of people I just want as clients and who I want to work with. That leads my decision If you're a dick, it's harder to sell and it's harder to work with you. And I can be authentic enough with you to say people think I'm a dick and don't want to do business with me, and that's completely fine. There's approaches that I have which are very you know, and I think this is. It takes a little while to get over being managed to then have no one managing you.

Adam Cordner: 59:11

You're just loose. You're just you're loose. And then you realize the value of HR and solicitings and all these things You're like.

Adam Cordner: 59:21

You just can't say that anymore and sort of coming down from that as well. But I think it's about you know, be the company and be the people that companies want to buy from, and be you know, be that physical representation of the business and what it defines as value, and it'll come through. But you know, you open yourself up to vulnerability and you open yourself up to criticism and losing deals. I've certainly pushed it too far and I've offended clients, I've made projections that were way over or way under, but I've also been the person that telling me and fixing the mistakes never been mortal wounds, it's all just part of it. And you know I just think that Simon would say the same thing and even with our investments, we work with 10%, 20% of our overall investments.

Adam Cordner: 1:00:28

And best book we now tell everyone to read but I certainly read every single year is Richard Kosher's book, the 8020 Principle and Pareto's Law. But read the book because it is so true. So 80% of our revenue is from 20% of our clients. It is 80% of our pipeline is going to go 20%. So we don't think about volumes and volumes of activity. We think about potency. You just have to be potent and then that came comes down to being pretty strong-willed in myself and understanding that, and Simon was pivotal in that it's even as an AE.

Adam Cordner: 1:01:12

I know my strengths as an AE, but I know my weaknesses, and it's getting your team and your management to go. Hey, these are my weaknesses like admin, awful, awful admin, awful farmer, better hunter, like understanding all those things. And you just say, can you like an athlete, like I'm a striker, can you help me with the rest of the game? And we do that with our team members now. So we sort of there's four of us sort of sit at the helm and we all know each other's weaknesses, like you wouldn't believe. But we talk about our potency. We go right right now. We need you here because you're potent at this and that potency that 20% of what their day-to-day is delivers 80% of our results. And so constantly critically thinking about what's working.

Adam Cordner: 1:02:09

And then another book which was pivotal and I got to become very good friends and is a mentor the book does it work? By Shane Atchison, who's a who's a storied CEO of. You know, we know Shane Atchison and he spent time as a the CMO at Domo, extremely giving man, but his book doesn't work. And then I think it's John Doar his book. Oh, he's the guy, the father of OKRs, measuring what matters, and if you can keep running those frameworks. Then you find that sometimes people buy in spite of you, and that happens a lot, and they've said like you know, we want to work with you, we think what you do is incredible, but we want you to do it in silence and in the background, and so we'll translate and then some of our companies will be like we want you to come in and take board seats and you know we want your culture and colonel over this thing, mate look, that's been a phenomenal conversation.

Daniel Bartels: 1:03:13

I mean, I think that normally we ask people to kind of wrap it up and, you know, give a couple of suggestions. You've done it without the prompting, mate. So I think those three books are a key. We'll actually put a link in the description for those books, because I think that's things that people should learn and develop on is awesome. But, mate, thank you so much for your time. But, mate, thanks so much for joining the podcast For all of our listeners. Hey, if you're watching us on YouTube, please click down below, like and subscribe. Drop us a comment, if you can. If you're listening on Apple or Spotify, give us five stars, Drop a comment, share some pieces about the podcast. We do appreciate everyone who comes and listens to us each week or so when we pop episodes out. We've got some more awesome episodes coming up. But thanks so much for your time, adam, and thanks for listening.

Adam Cordner: 1:04:02

Bye Tels. Good to see you, brother. Thanks, mate Cheers.