B2B Inspired
B2B Inspired, the podcast by BlueOcean - The B2B Agency, is all about exploring the ins, outs, ups and downs of B2B Marketing here in Aotearoa, New Zealand. We'll uncover emerging trends and thinking while sharing inspiring real-world stories from B2B Marketers here in New Zealand. With the goal of supporting New Zealand’s B2B Marketing community in becoming one of the best and brightest anywhere in the world, let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
B2B Inspired
The 2025 B2B Sales Outlook
What does the future of sales and marketing look like in New Zealand and beyond? Join us for an insightful conversation with Mike Stokes, the visionary founder of Indicator. Mike’s journey from small business ownership to becoming a key player in the sales industry offers a refreshing perspective on the often misunderstood field of sales. Uncover the unique challenges that New Zealanders face in a career path that many stumble into rather than choose. Through Mike's story, we challenge stereotypes and cultural perceptions, shining a light on the diverse skill set required for success in sales.
Sales and marketing alignment is more crucial than ever, and our discussion delves into the shifting dynamics between these two vital functions. Discover how companies are returning to the basics, focusing on accountability and hustle, while navigating the tricky waters of lead generation and business development. Mike shares his observations on the evolving relationship between sales and marketing, particularly within SaaS companies, and the role of collaboration in bridging existing gaps. We also highlight the contrasting confidence levels in Australia versus New Zealand regarding marketing's role in lead generation.
As we venture into the future, we explore the transformative impact of technology, especially AI, on sales and marketing leadership. Yet, amidst these digital advancements, the enduring importance of offline interactions and traditional marketing strategies remains clear. Mike emphasizes deliberate networking and the integration of AI tools, advocating for a harmonious blend of sales and marketing roles to drive business success. Tune in to gain valuable insights and actionable strategies to cultivate growth and success within your own sales teams.
For more B2B insights, ideas and opportunities, head to www.blueoceanagency.co.nz
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Let’s roll up our sleeves and take on tomorrow together.
Thank you of smart, good people from within our ecosystem. We're here to help the New Zealand B2B community to become one of the best, boldest and brightest anywhere in the world. Now if, like me, you live and breathe all things business to business and you're looking for a place to connect, learn and be inspired, you have come to the right place. Kia ora, and welcome back to B2B Inspired. Now we're recording this episode in early 2025. And if you've been through the traps last year, you would have heard the phrase survive till 2025, which is very, very much the mindset of last year in the business-to-business world.
Speaker 1:And we're joined today by Mike Stokes from Indicator. They're a sales development organization that have, for the last eight years, published a fantastic resource called the Mood of the Sales Leader, where they go out and survey and talk to hundreds of sales leaders across Australia and New Zealand to get a gauge of what they've been up against, what the year behind looked like and what they're looking forward to in the year ahead. So, mike, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you very much for having me Pleased to be here. Good stuff, now. One of the things that we like to kick off with here is we like to get to know the messenger before we talk about the message. So give us a little run through. Who's Mike and what's your journey been? What's led you to where you are?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I guess I'm the founder of Indicator, which is a sales development organization. That has been. We're now in our 10th year this year and I guess in some way or form I have always been passionate about sales, although I never really truly understood that I was going to be in sales until probably later in my life, because I wasn't necessarily that extroverted person that people often think of salespeople.
Speaker 2:But I really became interested in sales when I ended up owning a business in my mid to late 20s and of course, when you own a business, sales becomes critical. So that was my role to grow the business and I really started reading a lot of books, a lot of classic books, which are actually still pretty relevant on the whole today. So I read a lot of the likes of Zig Ziglar and Brian Tracy and even the occasional Donald Trump, and from there I became really passionate about sales. So we had this business. It was a nice small business called Art Mount, which we successfully managed to grow and actually at one point we were almost too successful on the sales front because we had massive to grow. And actually at one point it was we were almost too successful on the sales front because we had massive growing pains. It was incredibly stressful, but we got through that and we managed to triple the size of the company from what was an existing 20-year-old business and then sold it successfully after seven years of owning it.
Speaker 2:And from there I I was planning on purchasing another business, which the deal fell through, and then I was like, oh, oh, what do I do now? So I looked around at various different business opportunities and and then ended up working, getting offered a job at the Ice House and worked at the Ice House. I was on a one-year contract which at the time I remember saying, do I have to do one year? Could I do three months? And it was like, no, you have to do one year. And I ended up staying seven. So I was the director of sales and marketing there and loved it. And from there I noticed all the challenges that a lot of sales, a lot of companies had in sales, particularly a lot of startups, but also a lot of established companies and yeah, so that's been my real journey into yeah, into and wanting to own a sales leadership or a sales development company.
Speaker 1:Because sales is one of those funny areas you know it tends to be. I mean, certainly my observation of it is that it's somewhere you end up. You know people tend to. They either go in through running a business or owning a business, or they're a subject matter expert or they're an engineer, but at some point they kind of accidentally shift lanes into sales. But it's not like that everywhere you know. You look to the US and it's like sales is an honorable, respected and trained profession, but my sense is that New Zealand's maybe lagging there. What are your thoughts? Yeah?
Speaker 2:it's true. I mean there was a piece of research that came out that said something along the lines of 70% of salespeople in New Zealand didn't actually want to be in sales, which is quite curious, and yet very different in the US and very different probably in Australia as well. And yet very different in the US and very different probably in Australia as well. But I think once you get the passion for sales and once you truly understand what it's all about and once you recognise that you can never reach perfection in sales, then it becomes a fantastic career for a lot of people. But you certainly have, you know, we've all had those conversations with people who say, look, my son or daughter is not particularly smart or not particularly clever, you know, is their career in sales. And actually actually, I think um sales has all sorts of of different opportunities and needs.
Speaker 2:Um and iq and eq comes into, comes into a variety of different spaces. So I don't think you can cubbyhole sales people. There's a variety of different um. So I don't think you can cubbyhole salespeople. There's a variety of different roles. But typically in New Zealand we're very understated. We are very understated and, as I say, we quite often show a little bit of embarrassment or apprehension about being in sales.
Speaker 1:Yeah there's definitely that mindset there which is don't over-communicate what it is that you do, don't be the person that's, you know that's proud, don't be too proud, all that kind of thing which I think people uh sometimes associate with sales, but for the, for the wrong reasons. You know that whole concept of sales being the big brash, you know, the person who can talk someone into a deal yeah, it's not necessarily how it plays out right you know, like you, there's a lot more nuance to it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I think because of the size of a country, if you talk someone into a deal for a sale that's not of value to them, you're in trouble Because chances are they're not going to come back to you and they're not going to refer anyone to you and they're going to start bad-mouthing you. So it's a long game and there is certainly a risk for people acting in a way that's not right. But ultimately we're solving problems and adding value 100%. And if we are, why would we keep that secret? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, that secret. Yeah, yeah, right. So we've. You guys have just run um and by the time this podcast goes, goes live, we'll have released the uh, the most recent mood of the sales leader report. Um, I would love to hear your take on some of the key findings in it, key trends, um, what stood out to you?
Speaker 2:yeah, sure, well, as you mentioned, this is our eighth, so we first started surveying sales leaders in 2017. And I guess the really interesting fact is around. You know tracking those successes and you know surveys and reports and results and so forth. But I think what we can all recognize, first and foremost, was that 2024 was tough. It was for a lot of businesses. It was tough, and it was actually in eight years we saw the lowest number of companies achieve growth.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So 39% achieved growth. If we look back at last year or 2023 as an example, over 50% achieved growth, so I think it was 54%. And then, in the heady heights of 2022, 66% achieved growth. So I think it was 54%. And then, in the heady heights of 2022, 66% achieved growth. So big drop, and the 39% was even lower than the COVID year of 2021 and 2020. Wow, you know, 2020 and 2021.
Speaker 1:So we're talking about a year here that actually was lower performing than when we were all in lockdown, in lockdown, wow.
Speaker 2:Well, if most companies, what they experienced, say, six months after COVID started to boom and so a lot of companies got through that. But quite remarkable really. And one of the questions we pose in the mood was was this the toughest year since 2000. And what was the result? Well, we think it is, we absolutely think it is, and so it was incredibly tough. So that's the first off and we had a lot of companies decline 32% declined in revenue and when you take that into account of the remainder were flat, but also thinking about inflation and readjust thinking about inflation and readjust based on inflation there was probably a lot more than 32% declined. So it was a remarkably tough year. The other interesting thing from a sales perspective was that sales cycles increased, and so over 50% of companies or sales leaders suggested that it took them longer to close deals either with existing clients or new clients. So that's a big number.
Speaker 1:Decision paralysis, I mean it's always the enemy of the sales funnel, right? I mean there are some stats and I've seen some really interesting reports on what causes it, what the average length of a sales cycle is and what you can do to shorten it. But what would you see as having been the factors there, what led to those sales cycles? I think it was risk.
Speaker 2:I think companies pulled back and were very concerned about, you know, really focused on ROI. I think salespeople have a significant job to play in a sales cycle. I mean, sales has a rhythm, you know. It has steps to bring on clients and if you try to increase that, it will speed. You know, go through too fast, then you lose control and if you don't push them along enough too, then you'll lose that rhythm as well.
Speaker 2:But I think it was mainly around risk and concern about what was happening from an economic point of view. Yeah, but that was a pretty considerable drop. The other I guess the other key things is that sales leaders don't believe we're going to come out of the recession until the second half of 2025. Yeah, 60% highlighted at the end of the year, and then we saw it was also about 20% that highlighted either 2026 or 2027. So there is some realism there from sales leaders. We have still got some challenging obstacles, but there's also some optimism there as well. So we feel like we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and, yeah, so there's a little bit of confidence.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think one of the things that stood out to me is that, um, looking through the numbers, was that the the level of optimism, or let's say, cautious optimism was was higher than I thought. That the number of uh respondents that came back and said they're pessimistic about the outlook was actually it was very, very low.
Speaker 1:Three percent, three percent, there's a number yeah, but, but then by comparison, okay, cool. You know there's people are cautiously optimistic, but I guess the thing with that is that for that optimism to bear fruit, we have to do something about it, we have to manifest that change. So what does the year ahead look like in that sense?
Speaker 2:Well, and it's interesting, you bring up 3%. In Australia it was 0%. Yeah, no pessimism, no pessimism. So we thought maybe we've done something wrong or we haven't added that box or something along those. But no one was was pessimistic and and you know firstly I'll explain that with with sales leaders and sales but we are the most optimistic bunch of people you'll probably come across. We kind of have to be yep, every Monday starts with zero absolutely, you know so, but Every Monday starts with zero Absolutely. But there is this confidence or this realism to say, well, we're still here, we did survive on the most part, we did survive and it's probably not going to get any harder. It's probably going to stay the same for the next few months or so and then we've got an opportunity to advance. Actually, another interesting thing that came out of the mood this year was was the return to some kind of fundamentals of sales. You know, in 2022, if you had product, you typically sold it you know no, no issues.
Speaker 2:You know orders rolling in the door. Sales people were, and leaders as well were were incredibly successful, despite themselves in many ways. But there is certainly opportunity for those that drive hard to get it.
Speaker 1:And we did see.
Speaker 2:What we anecdotally saw throughout last year was usually when you think of the 80-20, so 80% of revenue is often driven by 20% of your best salespeople. It was more 90-10. So the cream was still very successful, but that moved into a 90-10 scenario rather than 80-20.
Speaker 1:And it's an interesting one when you take that context. One of the other stats from the report that stood out to me was the difference between Australia and New Zealand in terms of faith in marketing to be able to drive lead generation. I mean, that's always been part of the conversation between sales and marketing is can you drive leads and everything else like that. But I think at the School of Marketing there's been a lot of research over the last few years around the value of building brand and going along and everything else like that. But I think this year is going to be the people who come out on top are going to be the people who can hustle, who can keep themselves accountable, who can keep themselves pushing and driving, and it sounds like you're saying a similar thing from the sales camp. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean we need to be all focused on a variety of different you know different areas, and brand is a significant part of it. Actually, interesting in the in the year before, the number one things that that sales leaders suggest that they would invest in to grow revenue was marketing and brand.
Speaker 2:Yeah so and what was it this year? Uh, what was it this year actually? Oh, you put me on the spot. Number one thing to drive around, I think it was probably more business fundamentals. So business development by their salespeople was the number one, but it was. I mean, hopefully you saw that too. Dale was that the relationship between sales and marketing was quite intriguing. You know, two-thirds highlighted as good or excellent, which I thought was really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, if I look at our own stats on the podcast right, the um, the the most listened to episode that we've recorded was with uh, sonja webb from office max, and it's on the subject of sales and marketing alignment, because it still feels from um the marketing camp. Like you know, maybe that relationship is not as good as it could be or as it should be, but it's great to hear that from the sales side that relationship is viewed as strong and positive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I thought that was positive, but there's always going to be tension. There is tension and we did note which I think you highlighted there that two-thirds also said that their marketing team was average to poor about driving leads. So there is that missing element.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. It's really interesting when you compare those two numbers. It's like cool, we're happy with the relationship, but we don't really rely on them to do the thing that we need them to do. So what do you see as? How could we address the gap there?
Speaker 2:Well, some of the things that came out where I thought were really good were more collaboration was needed, and if you're in sales of which a huge percentage of them said they had significant influence particularly sales leaders on the marketing in their company, then they need to be feeding back information to marketing Absolutely, and all those great stories they hear from customers and things like that and everything that they're able to that are valued to take back to the marketing team is absolutely critical. But there was also some other thoughts around shared goals and metrics, which I think can be incredibly smart. But we know sales and marketing has 100% got a lot closer in the last few years. There's always going to be some tension, but really positive to see that it was deemed in such a good light.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think in the B2B context as well, the two of them have to work in such close lockstep right, and certainly, I mean, when you look at um, like the sass firms of the world, they tend to be quite well honed because they do have that, I suppose, more of an adoption of, of good systems that help them create shared visibility on, okay, marketing funnel, feeding into sales funnel, into shared metrics, um. But in some of the more traditional industries should we say, like, where you've got got an enclave of really, really established salespeople and marketing makes the brochures, yeah, that's still got room to go there, but that's just going to be part of the journey.
Speaker 2:I think there, yeah, yeah, well, one question we didn't ask, which we certainly could add next year, is marketing and sales sitting in the same area, same floor?
Speaker 1:In some cases not even the same country, but, yeah, physically together, which you know, of course there's value there. So, within the research, um, there's a couple of things I want to unpick here. Um, did you see much nuance or differentiation between different industries, like when you really really dig down into it? Were there some that were stronger, others that were lagging?
Speaker 2:There was always some nuances, but I think the remarkable thing particularly if we're talking about 2024, that it was right across the board. You know there was outliers in a lot of different industries that had achieved growth and in some cases incredible growth, but I think what was really quite obvious is that the decline in revenue and the challenges hit pretty much every industry.
Speaker 1:Okay, so those outliers and the ones that did really really well, are they selling domestically or are they exporting Domestically? Interesting On the whole? That's really good to hear On the whole. Okay, yeah, because I think a lot of the time, certainly some of the businesses that we will be talking to exports 90% of their business, but it's good to hear that businesses actually transacting within the country there are some there that have been buoyant, yeah.
Speaker 2:There was definitely some exporters, but on the whole, many of those ones that were successful were successful domestically.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it kind of begs the question well, what made them successful? Yeah, and there's a variety of answers to that. I'm sure, and you know, for some of them it was luck, they were playing in a space that was that was, you know, really relevant and really important and, for whatever reason, created great demand. There was also others that that got quite aggressive. And yeah, when we say aggressive not in a bad way, but got busy, I mean the worst thing you can do in a decline is, you know, put your head in the sand.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and leadership came into a big part of it too, those leaders that continue to inspire their team and it's always difficult to motivate a team, but supporting them from. I often when people say about coaching as an example, you've got to coach the whole person. Everyone's got things going on in their lives outside of work and the key thing is how do you support them to be successful? I'll tell you actually something else that came into it that was a really surprise for me was that this may surprise your listeners, but not all salespeople are driven by incentives or revenue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it highlights it every time, if you think of what drives people to be successful.
Speaker 2:Often, money can be way down the list. It can be driven to be the best at what you do, or the love of your clients, or the love of your company Inner drive is always a really critical part of that. The love of your company, or, you know, inner drive is always a really, you know, critical part of that. Um, but what we found with sales people because we, you know, we get insights from, from sales people in the mood as well, which was fascinating this year was it was, you know, they there was a massive increase in those driven by incentives okay so in the past, and we've typically asked this question for the last, at least least the last five years you would have about 40%.
Speaker 2:That would highlight that they are driven by their incentive. Yeah, jumped from 40% to 72%. Wow, said they were driven by their incentive, and unless companies have suddenly got remarkably good at creating incentive programs that now motivate the way that we would, the way that we believe, the reason why that happened was last year, in 2024, there was still about 70% of salespeople that got an increase in salary yeah, okay. But 70% of them as well, of those ones that did get an increase in salary, were less than 5% yeah, okay. And in the year before it was 6% to 10%, okay yeah.
Speaker 2:So there was a big fall in the salary increases that salespeople had and only about 40, I think it was 43% achieved their targets. So if you think about incentives, that you know whilst it drove them, you know a lot of them still, you know because of the economic environment weren't able to get there. But if you think about, you know the cost of living, the mortgages, the lights, interest rates where they were.
Speaker 1:Yeah, completely.
Speaker 2:Then remuneration has just got really important. And what was equally fascinating about salespeople was that only 37% of them said we're going to stay with our current employer for the next 12 months. There was a bunch that were unsure, but it was a very small number. And if you look at Australia, where they had similar slight decreases in salary, 66% of them were saying no, I'm going to stay with my employer the next 12 months.
Speaker 1:Okay, so more of a long-term loyalty view there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there isn't. If you think about it. There isn't a huge amount of jobs out there, but yet they're not completely sticking with their current role.
Speaker 1:So is that to say that somewhere in New Zealand there are a bunch of guns for hire right now?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, there is One of the things which we saw in that COVID year was in the sort of two years after it that salespeople were jumping for $5,000 extra type thing, or $10,000 extra, and then that scenario stopped. Actually, we saw the elder salesperson for $5,000 extra type thing, or $10,000 extra, and then that scenario stopped. Actually, we saw the elder salesperson who is sometimes out of favour because they look at salespeople and go it needs to be high energy and it needs to be this. They became very popular because companies were going I'm sick of employing these young people. We're going to jump from five to ten. Know older, loyal salesperson will stick. But yeah, I think there is. Whilst there's not a huge amount of you know jobs being advertised at the moment, you know salespeople are interested.
Speaker 1:So there's an increasing importance there, let's say this year. On the package, what does that package and that incentive piece look like? But from a business owner's perspective, that might not necessarily be enough. So when you look at things like sales, leadership and coaching, the whole person, what are the things to think about in that space?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, it is tough because, you know, if we look at those increases in salaries, because the companies weren't performing as well as they would like, they didn't necessarily have the opportunity to increase salaries, and so it was always a case of what can we do to retain our top talent? And I remember one of the comments from a good client of ours is that they had a big sales team. We don't have the means to be able to give everyone a big investment, sorry, a big increase in salaries, but we're investing more in them from a development perspective. But remuneration will be key. But salespeople want to feel part of something. They want to feel that they whether it's financially rewarded, but they want the pat on the back and they want to know that, if they're successful, that there is opportunities for them to develop and opportunities to advance in roles and things like that. So typically, usually remuneration is down the list, but it has to be part of the forefront at the moment, just because of the sheer nature of the economy and people's wallets.
Speaker 1:It's interesting that you say that, though, because when again looking through the numbers, we've heard this story time and time again that New Zealand typically underspends on training development for salespeople, and I think the number was New Zealand spent on average 2,900 thereabouts about three grand on sales development and training, versus Australia at five and a half, and they're the people who've outperformed us for the last couple of years on achieving growth. What are the gaps that sales forces? Generally speaking?
Speaker 2:what do they need?
Speaker 1:Where are the blind spots? Where do they actually need leveling up and training?
Speaker 2:And how do?
Speaker 1:you go about getting them on that path.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think actually one thing I should say is that it was the ones that not everyone spent on. So it was the companies that did invest in their people spent on average in New Zealand $3,000. And we highlight that what enables salespeople to be successful and it's a mixture of the people, the process and the technology, which was interesting coming out too, because sales leaders the biggest area they wanted to advance was around technology and AI.
Speaker 2:So that came into the conversation. But there's always a mixture To make salespeople successful, there's always a mixture of mindset and skill sets and when, typically, you look at the areas that enable a salespeople to be really successful, and often the really successful salespeople have some form of super ability that's hard to transfer. You know super ability that's hard to transfer but you know it is often the 80-20 in mindset versus skill sets. The biggest thing that, if you're looking at the holy grail of sales, when you're running a big sales team, is to build some consistency, which is the hard part of being a sales leader, and when you're building consistently, it's to be consistently good. So if I think of some of the areas that we were really called on in the last 12 months to develop or train salespeople, certainly mindset had a big sort of scenario with it.
Speaker 2:Negotiation skills were a significant part of it. Sales process is always, you know, the breaking down, the little you know the intimate details about a Sales process is always you know the breaking down. The little you know, the intimate details about a sales process is always, you know, is always really critical and that's ongoing. It's ongoing. But all of these areas to develop in a sales person and, as I said before, you can never get perfection right. So the best thing about a sales person or a sales leader equally even more so important is that they're constantly reflecting and advancing and looking to improve. It's an absolute demand for salespeople. But you don't have to do paid formal development. Development starts in your coaching, in your sales meetings.
Speaker 2:Too often sales meetings are going around the room and saying who's closed, what or what's happening. But it's a great opportunity. It's the only opportunity you really have as a team to advance. You know to get better, you know learn from everyone's successes and mistakes and so forth. So it doesn't have to be spending dollars outside of your business to advance, but development has got to be a critical part of your sales team's performance.
Speaker 1:My wife works in the emergency room and one of the things that's a bit depressing but it's also a really interesting opportunity and a way of looking at learning is that they run these things called M&M meetings, which is morbidity and mortality. Like, what were the scenarios that caused? You know where did we go wrong? What were the things that caused? You know what can we have learned from that? You know patient outcomes weren't where they should have been, and I think that's a really, really interesting area within the sales remit is actually being able to have those conversations where you do that retrospective and say I can actually pinpoint the moment where this went wrong and are you seeing that happening? Never enough.
Speaker 2:I mean simple things like ride along. So if you're a sales leader, listening how often you do ride alongs, when was the last time you did a ride along? And also you know how often can you keep your mouth shut in a meeting, which I always struggle with. You know when you go. Can you keep your mouth shut in a meeting, which I always struggle with? You know when you go out with a salesperson and you see ways to do it and you've got to keep quiet.
Speaker 1:Right, Let them do the thing. Yeah, you've got to keep quiet.
Speaker 2:So, but yeah, reflection is such a critical part of being great at sales and sales leadership any role, really. I also think you put something in quite a bit of context there too, right? Yeah? Is that you know, no one died. No one died, right? So, you know, learn from your mistakes and learn from good things as well. You know, and that's why it's so good to share good stories about you know? Hey, win-loss analysis yeah, I think a lot of companies focus on the loss analysis.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:You know, why did we lose this opportunity? Not enough companies focus on the win. So a great example of that is if someone highlights that they want to work with you and here's the contract and we're going to sign up to you. The great question is can I ask why? What have we do that you really like? What could we improve on? And the value of doing your win analysis over your loss analysis is that if you're saying no to me, it's like breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Basically, you don't want to see them anymore. Like breaking up with a boyfriend or a girlfriend. You know. Basically, you want to see. You don't want to see them anymore. You want to cut ties. You want to cut ties and so you're going to make something up more than likely. You know you're going to say, oh look, your price was too expensive or you know whatever, just to get them. You know, out of the room or out of the conversation. They take everything.
Speaker 1:Everything. That's such an interesting lens because I think often you'll be at that point from the salesperson's perspective, like cool, we've gone through all it, we've done the dance, we've done all the contract negotiation. I don't want to get anything in the way of that signature, but that's such an opportune moment, like you said, to just uncover why was it us? What made you choose us? Yeah, you can wait till they've signed this, signed it of course.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait till it's been sent through. Yeah, exactly, it's all good to go, but yeah, it's, it's the perfect time. It's actually the perfect time to ask for a referral to um, which people also feel awkward about rather than waiting three months or so when you've delivered you know great work is the idea to then ask for a referral. It's a great time to ask for a referral that's again.
Speaker 1:That's another really, really interesting one, because the mindset there would be oh well, we haven't delivered for them yet, we haven't done the thing that we said we would do, but you actually find that that's a time that works 100% there is great excitement on both sides.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you think about it with an opportunity with your business, you know you've signed up a client. You're both potentially excited about the outcomes that could come from this. It's a great place to play.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting. Again, it's a different stage of the sales cycle that you don't necessarily think of or you think about delaying it until later on Interesting. So what else in the year ahead? What does 2025 look like? What are the challenges? What should we be thinking about from a sales leadership perspective? What does 2025 look like? What are the challenges? What should we be thinking about from a sales leadership perspective? From a business management perspective, marketing perspective?
Speaker 2:What are the drivers. I think the technology part is interesting. Yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 1:You're in the studio after we've just been talking to Dave Howden from Superhuman AI, okay, and talking about the practicalities about using AI. So that was obviously a hot topic this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, although I heard a great quote about AI the other day. I saw it on LinkedIn where someone said ride the foam, not the wave, and the foam I took from that was the hype and the da-da-da, and then the wave is the actual working part of it and I think a lot of a lot of um. Ai has been some phone but now it's actually coming just as as a regular part of of people's roles and it's incredible, like every time I use, you know, chat, gpt, I just it just blows my mind, I use it every day, it's just like this is just ridiculous.
Speaker 2:But we did note that and whilst we saw that salespeople increased their usage from 22% of salespeople using AI in 23% to 56% in 24%, which is a big jump we also note that a lot of companies weren't using it as a wider company from a sales perspective. So you know they, whatever reason they weren't, you know they didn't implement tools or so forth in their business, and so I think that's critical part and it's it's always fit. You know. I mean, the CRM space is always, is always, fascinating. We still see companies that either don't use it and a lot of them use it badly.
Speaker 1:And that's critical and, as a colleague of mine said, your best asset is your customer information in many ways, which is debatable, but it's phenomenal, it's an asset, it's an absolute asset, so why wouldn't you really nurture and look after that?
Speaker 2:So I think that's always interesting, but it'll be. I mean, technology is just going to roll, of course, and you'll speak to it a lot better than I will, but with that, the one thing that salespeople will need to be aware of, with this more digital approach, don't forget the offline, and that's critical, and I personally have to put my hand up and say I've got a bit lazy on not doing in-person meetings as much as I should. People will really appreciate that we are all still humans. We like the engagement with people. If you are hiding behind AI tools and so forth, you know you are going to miss a beat. So so don't forget the in-person.
Speaker 1:I think that's a really really critical part, but use the ai to and tech to make those interactions better, yeah, or I guess the other piece of that is to use it to free up the time to have the in-person yeah, to go, and you know you can spend an hour in the car if you know you've taken two hours out of your discovery process or whatever else by using tools like that. So it's a really interesting reminder, that one, I mean you can't replace face-to-face, you just can't and again you touched on it being actually appreciated. There are pockets where you dealing with a lot of people who quite like being behind a screen and everything else like that, but there's still a bit of space for old school.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, if I look at some of the work that we did last year from the marketing perspective. Actually, some of the most successful stuff we did was not digital, it was physical, like actual physical, old physical, old-fashioned abm target list. Something goes out to them and that's the thing that then triggers the conversation um which you know if you've come from a, if you've come from a background of digital marketing just seems, you know, it's like something from the yellow pages, but shit, this stuff works. It's still some of the tried and true stuff, don't, don't overlook it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. And things like events yeah, you know they're so important. Engaging with people shaking hands yeah.
Speaker 1:Critical. You know, I think Still have a business card in 2025.
Speaker 2:Haven't used a business card for a long time, but deliberate networking was listed as one of the really key areas to. In fact, I think it was listed as the number one. The number one from sales, from sales leaders, was, you know, deliberate networking and the events. You know the events industries had a pretty tough time and it does. You know some, as a company that runs a lot of events. It's always incredibly frustrating when you know people cancel and things like that and we get it right. Things get in the way but don't forget about them, you know.
Speaker 1:So deliberate networking that's not loitering outside the toilets till that prospect that you know you want to talk to comes out Well it could be. It could be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could be. I don't necessarily recommend that one. At least you're outside the bathroom and not in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, literally going to places where there's people that you want to meet, or going to see people that you're in your target audience. I mean, you don't want to be one of those people that are lurking around holding a trench coat open saying, hey, this is what I've got. But if you're professional and you're open and you're curious, then deliberate networking, of course, yeah okay, and any last thoughts, anything else to kind of add to the mix there.
Speaker 2:Well, watch the space. I think we want to see more of that interaction between sales and marketing flowing together. We've certainly seen a number of roles over the last few years that have come together which have the sales and marketing right across, both in people's leadership roles, challenging, because they are very, very different and usually you'll have one very rare to come across. In fact, I can't think of anyone who doesn't have a bent to one side or the other, but I think that from a sales perspective, I think a lot of people spend a lot of time selling and I think about this from a company perspective but they don't spend a lot of time breaking down exactly what they're doing in the sales and making it better, and I think companies are missing a beat if they don't put.
Speaker 2:I mean, it seems crazy, but there are a lot of companies. When you ask owners of businesses how much time have you spent looking over what you do from a sales perspective, the answer will typically be really poor.
Speaker 1:And is that because they don't think to ask, or because there's a mindset, or the type of person in sales is kind of you know, brings a shroud around and is like that's my process, leave me to it.
Speaker 2:It can be a variety of things. One of the things we know from business owners is that they go to employ, say, their first salesperson.
Speaker 2:They've been doing sales themselves and, for whatever reason they've been successful at it, to grow their business and for whatever reason they've been successful at it, to grow their business. And then they have this mindset to say I'm going to employ a salesperson who's going to do who's 100% of their time is going to be on sales. I only spend 10% of my time on so they're going to be wildly more successful than I am. And they bring them in and they let them go and they give them nothing and da-da-da, and then they're disappointed because it's not successful. Yeah, seen it.
Speaker 2:So many times, yeah, Of course you know, of course, and so they haven't put the time in to really support them in understanding what they should be doing. And building that passion is a really important thing which is hard to shift from a founder or you know into another person, and as the team grows, that they haven't provided that structure around them to build that consistency I mentioned earlier. So, but you know, sales is as Brian Tracy said. You know it's the transferal of enthusiasm.
Speaker 1:And I'll tell you one thing it's a great quote, by the way. I love that.
Speaker 2:It's a great quote you know, and it's so true. I'll tell you one thing For people great quote, by the way, it's a great quote, you know, and it's so true. Um, I tell you one thing for people to even just if you're just going to do one thing my biggest bugbear from salespeople who are looking to to sell to me is that they don't do their research before the meeting yep so they don't turn up armed with all that knowledge that they should have before going into that meeting.
Speaker 2:So one very, very simple thing, and it amazes me still how often I go into that conversation and they haven't done it. And yeah, it's really something that I find frustrating.
Speaker 1:And also not now the toughest nut to crack. I mean, if we look at again the adoption of tools like AI.
Speaker 2:Hey, give me a summary on mike. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, there's a wonderful tool that we've been using for a bunch of years probably about four, four years, I think called crystal crystal nose. Yeah, have you come across that I I probably should have done, but no, it's. It's essentially. It um, it highlights, um your disk profile from your LinkedIn profile.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So it can pull out your personality type. Okay, it's a very simple tool. It's a plug-in and it can extract. You know what type of person is this who I'm going to meet? How do they like to be engaged with? Do they like small talk or do they like, you know, more conversational? What are they going to negotiate on? How should you sell to them? How should you email them? How should you call them? Things like this. And this has been around for a good three or four years, I think. Okay, so AI's been around and things like this are so easy to use.
Speaker 1:Before going to meet, I'm fascinated to know what it would say about me.
Speaker 2:I can tell you. I can tell you, well, I haven't done it. I was going to say have you done the research? I can pull the report.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's awesome. Well, look, we're just about wrapped up for time here, but, mike, thank you so much. It's been a really, really enjoyable conversation and we will, when we share this all out, we'll, pop out links to the Mood of the Sales leader report where people can get it themselves and learn all of the good stuff that's been highlighted in it and take on the year ahead. So, mike, thank you so much pleasure. Thank you for having me. That's that. Thanks for listening to.
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