Pillar Talk: Building Sales Leadership with Rick Smolen
Join Rick Smolen and other seasoned B2B sales leaders on the quest for defining great sales leadership. Learn the pillars of successful leadership, hear stories about what works and what doesn’t, lessons learned, and come away with specific tactics you can apply to your job or career right now.
Pillar Talk: Building Sales Leadership with Rick Smolen
Beneath the Surface: Selling to Emotions, Not Just Logic with Ash Khalek
Sales expert Ash Khalek reveals how to identify and address the emotional factors driving buyer decisions that exist "below the waterline." His approach distinguishes between the logical elements prospects discuss openly and the personal motivations that actually move deals forward.
• Pipeline coverage at quarter start often looks promising but deals stall without addressing emotional drivers
• The "waterline concept" separates visible logical buying factors from hidden emotional motivations
• After identifying business problems, ask "what would it mean for you personally?" then wait ten seconds
• Strong rapport must be established before prospects will reveal their true personal motivations
• Sales leaders should coach teams to listen for subtle cues that reveal emotional drivers
• Role-playing with teams helps develop skills in uncovering below-the-waterline buying factors
• Differentiating yourself from competitors means addressing both logical and emotional aspects
• People buy emotionally first, then justify logically with features and specifications
• Consistent sales success comes from genuine desire to help solve both business and personal challenges
Music by Ben Cina & Ayler Young
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Pillar Talk, where we build the foundations of sales leadership success and try to create clarity in terms of what good looks like for current and aspiring sales leaders. Before we jump in, I like to review the six pillars of successful sales leadership. It starts with talent identification and attraction. Obviously, building the right team is critical to having that success, and both attraction and identification are difficult. Hold on, I'm going to back up. Before we jump in, let's review the six pillars of successful sales leadership. It starts with talent identification and attraction. Both are extremely difficult.
Speaker 2:Operating rhythm that's the environment that fosters motivation, engagement and accountability. Business planning, working cross-functionally to play offense and plan for the future rather than reacting to things that happen to you. Which things do happen. And mastering the craft where the best leaders know how to help the team win. That's tactical as much as it is strategic. And then communication and ownership, and those take a variety of forms but become critical in our journey to being successful sales leaders.
Speaker 2:Today I am excited to have on Pillar Talk Ash Colick. Ash is a scaling advisor based in Australia and before sort of being a scaling advisor and helping founders grow their business, ash had an extended career in the deep trenches of enterprise sales and has had many demanding leadership roles. For example, ash lasted over 10 years at Oracle during the 2000s, at the beginning of this century and at a time when the reputation in the sales org there was, I'll say, darwinian, to put it mildly. Ash has also had leadership roles at Intralinks, where our paths has crossed, and did over six years at FIS, a big global, leading financial technology company. Ash has lived leadership at companies large and small. So, ash, I am super appreciative of you being with us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks, rick, and yes, I think we used to manage or we used to talk about our length of stay at Oracle in number of quarters, I think I got up to 43. So that was an achievement.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I believe it. Some of the stories that you shared were it's tough. You had to deliver, and part of me appreciates that, and part of me is stressed out by some of those stories as well. That and part of me is stressed out by some of those stories as well. Ash, you may not remember this, but you provided formative coaching in my own leadership journey.
Speaker 2:I was working and living in Hong Kong. I had been there for over a year and I was delighted that you had joined. You were someone that was like from that side of the hemisphere. All the work that I had been doing at the time, I had fearful that if I was to leave, what would happen, and so when a real leader came in, that was somebody that wasn't going to be moving to the other hemisphere. It was a big relief and I was very excited, and so maybe I wanted to show off a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm not really sure, but when you first joined, I wanted to demonstrate how difficult it was to communicate back with HQ, which was 12 time zones away, and I don't remember the exact context, but I sent probably a smart Alec email back to finance around some really difficult issue that we had at the time and I remember the next day we barely knew each other. You sat me down and you said Rick, is it OK if I gave you some feedback? And I said sure. And you said Rick, I got to say that behavior that I saw in that email demonstrated that you're not acting as a senior leader. And then the room just sat silent for a minute. As a high performer I wasn't used to getting challenging feedback around what I was doing or not doing. But, man, I appreciated it. I sort of sat on that and I feel like I really learned from it. So thank you, ash.
Speaker 3:Well and look, I think both ways, because I think you were receptive to the whole idea of making improvements. But I think it's really important to be quite honest with people in terms of when they're doing great, but also when there's an area for improvement, and I think kudos to you for running with it and making really some fundamental changes that I think have probably held you in great stead going forward in your career.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just don't see a lot of like direct, honest feedback happen as much as it should. There's books written about it and all that, but I do. It stands out to me as like a formative moment where I wasn't doing something right. Somebody pointed it out with constructive intent to help me be better, so really, really appreciated it. So it's great to see you. I'm really glad that you're with us. I've seen you become more active on social media lately. What's got you excited these days?
Speaker 3:Well, I think, based on seeing so many sales leaders struggle with their pipeline, one of the things that I remember in my days was that you'd focus on the hygiene factors of the pipeline and at the beginning of the quarter everything looked great. You'd have all the happy news, the happy ears, forecasts were looking strong. But then as the quarter progressed, you get to the stage where basically, deals were starting to stall and you also, obviously, your forecasts were starting to slip and inevitably you'd go to your one or two big top reps and say can you do something just to get me over the line for the quarter. So I think that whole area I've seen repeat time and time again and it got me thinking well, there's got to be a better way. And what really struck me was when I realised that a lot of times deals are actually stalling because we're addressing what the customer's asking for in turn. But they're actually logical elements. I like to think of it like a bit of an iceberg. So if you think of what a customer asks for in terms of the features, benefits, case studies, the experience of the team, think of the tip of the iceberg and what's above the waterline, that's all logical stuff. But what really happens and what moves deals is what happens underneath the waterline. So that's where the client, the buyer, is under certain pressure. Things that really matter to them, they all sit under that waterline and the stuff that they feel that never say aloud, they all sit there.
Speaker 3:So the idea is, as a, I guess, from a leadership point of view, to coach your team to uncover those emotional factors or, below the waterline, to complement. So I'll give you an example this is a personal example where I was looking to buy one of those fancy pizza ovens for the backyard and on the surface it was really all about cooking the best pizza. But when I sat down and, you know, looking at forking out a few bucks for it, I realised the real reason I wanted that pizza oven was so that I could have a lot of friends around all having a great time and thinking that Ash is a kick-ass pizza maker. And that's really the difference between. You know, above the line is kind of above the water line, is all about the best pizza, but really the emotional driver was below the waterline. And so that's the stuff that sort of I'm trying to help leaders coach their teams to identify in their sales cycle.
Speaker 2:I love that. I mean, I can completely picture and connect with the concept that it's the beginning of the quarter. You're looking at metrics like pipeline coverage. You're seeing, okay, we have two times, four times coverage. We're feeling good. There's a long list of opportunities. We need to make sure their pipeline hygiene is a thing. We need things during the right stage. We have to make sure it's the right dollar amount.
Speaker 2:And as the quarter progresses and inevitably the pipeline starts to stall and the coverage starts to go down. And then you look for the hero to say how are we going to get out of this thing, what are the key deals? And it becomes a bit more of a scramble. So the idea of like, as we go further than just the surface layer of the pipeline, how do we help our sellers or coach or lead a team to look beyond just the technical requirements? Right, I love the pizza analogy. It's not just about the heat of the oven, it's about you know what's going to happen on the other side around it. And so I guess it goes into what are some of the tactical advice or some of the tactics that you are seeing that is working to help, Because it's easier said than done to find emotional resonance.
Speaker 2:It can be difficult to be. You know some of. We talk about building credibility, establishing trust, being the trusted advisor, being consultative and not making it about your product but making it more about the customer. What are you seeing that's working to sort of identify the below the waterline?
Speaker 3:So, firstly, how do you identify? You have a problem there, and I think we've all been in that situation where we have submitted what we think is the perfect proposal. Right, it's hitting the mark in terms of what the client has asked for. You know we've got the right functions, features, we're addressing their business needs. You know we've got everything sorted out in terms of the team and so forth, but the deal stalls and therefore it's about identifying the stuff under the waterline. So this way I think of this is think of your typical coaching or sorry, discovery process. When you're going through discovery, you'll identify the client's business problems. Most people will jot that down and then move on.
Speaker 3:What I suggest people do as sales leaders in terms of coaching is get the person to then say firstly, what if you were able to overcome these sort of problems? So move your prospect into like a future state. Then ask so what would mean to the business if you actually achieved overcoming these problems? And here's the killer line. You then say what would it mean for you? And you're gonna pause ten seconds. Just take up the silence. That's where the buyer will then start to talk about what it means for them. You're're now below that waterline. They're talking about the pain points, the things that really matter to them, and the trick is address those as well as what's above the waterline. Does that make?
Speaker 2:sense. It makes great sense, would you say, that the future state and the impact of the business and all the stuff that we teach in value selling is a little bit more of the above. The waterline and the emotional sort of how it impacts the individual you're working with directly is the stuff that's the good stuff below.
Speaker 3:Correct, and so it's a matter of building on what we've, I guess, been doing in the past. As I say, most people will go through the discovery, identify all the problems but not drill down into what is the implication, what's the consequence of achieving or not achieving, overcoming those problems. And you can do it at two levels. One is impact on the business, but the really key thing is so what does it mean for you? And you just pause, that is gold when people kind of when the client just thinks and you can see it in their eyes. The other thing that helps is to take a positive stance. So you know in terms of the problems, then say, in terms of you know overcoming them, what does that mean for the business? And so you're getting people into that positive state. And then again, what does it mean for you personally?
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing you describe is personalizing selling, and it is a non-intuitive aspect for a salesperson that's focused on a business problem or a business opportunity and wants to educate, based on our capabilities to meet that need, to sort of move to the side of that and get into, sometimes, the life aspect of the individual on the other side, because what it means for them personally is often got something to do with their.
Speaker 3:You know, it could be their professional life, but it could be things outside of that as well it is, and you're not going to get to that spot unless right at the start of the discovery you have built.
Speaker 3:Rapport and I think of rapport as nothing more than trust, and that's about valuing the values of the person you're talking with and you know not judging what they're saying, but you know at least saying to them yeah, I understand where you're at. You can then move into the discovery phase, ask all the normal questions about. You know what they want to achieve all that, but because you've got that rapport built, it allows you then to be able to go through and then ask what does it mean for you? Now it doesn't. You know the answer, so I'll give you some examples.
Speaker 3:I was talking, I remember, early on talking with a CIO who was running a number of different or his clients were six different business units, and he said this statement in the discussion I wish that businesses would take ownership of innovation rather than leaving it to IT.
Speaker 3:Now, when I drilled down in that and understood, what came out is that he was actually frustrated that IT was being seen as a cost center, an organization that just delivers, but not a thought leader or an innovator. So what you know, what that helped me understand, is that I needed to show how he can be positioned within the organization as a thought leader, a change agent, obviously within the IT role. That not only closed the deal, but it closed the deal because, from a competitive point of view, everyone else was talking above the line. They were talking about how good their functions and features were, roi, correct, correct, right. And this is the interesting thing when you make an offer, you need to address both above the waterline and below the waterline. The reality is, a buyer will make a decision based on below the waterline, but they will justify it 100%.
Speaker 2:I love the framing of this. Let me just ask a tactical question related. You painted the picture of a future state. Where and how would that affect the individual which has the positive connotations? Of good things that happen to them.
Speaker 2:Often we hear that people don't take action typically unless it's addressing pain right, like, for example, I only go to the doctor when it's like my leg's about to fall off, not if I'm like my knee hurts. You know, I'm like stubborn, like that, but pain is the driver that does is the same sort of situation where you're identifying the pain points and the implications of those pain points and then also sort of how does that affect the individual? How do you think about the negative connotation, you know, versus the positive one?
Speaker 3:No. So you do start with the pain points in the discovery. As per normal, the positive connotation is really saying so what if that pain was removed in the future? So that's what I mean about taking people to the future state with that context in mind and you'll see their eyes light up and they'll go well, you know that's, you know that'll be great because, blah, blah, blah, you know I'll be able to be, you know to be seen better or whatever. So the idea is you're anchoring to the pain, but then you're taking the future state and saying, what if that pain was removed? What would that mean for the business and what would that mean for you?
Speaker 2:Does the buyer, in this case, have to have a certain level of seniority?
Speaker 3:Sometimes we're working with folks that aren't the decision maker but are obviously, you know, our main point of contact and influential in the decision making process in a decision-making process, yeah, so I guess this approach works best with not only the decision-maker, but also the budget holder and also that person in the organisation that's always going to be the devil's advocate. So it's a matter of, I think, honing in Early in the sales process. You're obviously going to be talking to a broader team within the organisation and therefore you're probably going to be at above the waterline. But when you get in front of the people that are making the decision, owning the budget, and are going to try to say why not, then that's when you need to be. Your proposition to them needs to address both above and below the waterline.
Speaker 2:So, ash, as sales leaders, getting back to what you originally described we've got a pipeline of deals, we've got the right pipeline coverage. We don't want deals to stall. What are some of the ways I'm coaching and managing my forecast with this knowledge or framing of not just above the waterline but below the waterline, as a consequence of my pipeline management?
Speaker 3:So simple thing is you know, when you're doing your pipeline review and or the deal review and you ask so what's the pain point? Yeah, obviously you'll get all those. Then you've got to drill down and say so, have you asked them? What is the impact on the business if that pain is removed? Have you asked them? So what for you as an individual? That's the tactical change that a sales leader needs to be thinking of. The other thing is and there's a bit of coaching in terms of helping sales reps listen properly to these sort of cues so I mentioned before the one about the IT leader who said that the business should take care of or should be involved in innovation.
Speaker 3:I'll give you another example I was in. I used to sell treasury. After Interlinks, I was selling treasury systems, which is all about managing cash in an organization. I was speaking with the CFO and he ran, I think, about eight or 10 countries across Asia and he said to me I said so why are you looking for a treasury system? And he said oh, we need automation, we need efficiency.
Speaker 3:We talked, we drilled down and what came out is that there'd been a fraud case not one, but two fraud cases in some of the other countries. So what was most important to him was making sure that to the CEO and the board, he was seen as someone that fixed this problem permanently. But also he wanted to make sure that his peers never found out that under his watch something like this happened. So it was all about positioning the offer in terms of the trust and being able to have no surprises, and then also saying that we've got the most efficient, the best functions and features as a treasury system and it's the right price. So he could justify it along those lines when he said I want to go with these guys. Those lines when he said I want to go with these guys. So it's about then helping as a leader, coaching your reps to pick on a certain statement that was made and then drill down and say okay, I think this is pointing to something underneath the waterline.
Speaker 3:Let's drill down a little bit more on this and understand what's behind it yeah you're, you're prioritizing the emotional buying process as part of your coaching.
Speaker 2:I mean, I know, I think it's great like people buy emotionally and rationalize logically. So you know, we got to play the game in terms of a logical decision making process with technical requirements that fit this spreadsheet, and we got to check the boxes and do all that. That's like there's no escaping that and you do have to have a solution. Obviously that can do the thing that solves the problem. So we accept that all that is true and a lot of sales today is going through the motions of that.
Speaker 2:And you're saying there's a different game also happening that a lot of people aren't playing, and that is what I'm calling the emotional game. For the folks that are making the decision, what's the win for them as an individual? A, we don't often ask the question of what that is. So how do we get our teams to ask that question? You said one got to build the right rapport. There's probably tactics to build the right rapport with senior folks that we can dig into. And then, two, finding those moments of relationship building, or I don't want to call it vulnerability, vulnerability, but maybe connection where you can get to that side, or what you call under the water line, like that's very interesting.
Speaker 3:I don't see enough coaching towards that dynamic which I've seen you lean into a little bit here yeah, and I think, um, you know, one of the the key things is to be able to do that, and sometimes you get resistance right when you start talking with reps about, you know, taking this different approach. It's touchy-feely stuff and it's not If you present it as. What does it mean for you? You're not asking someone's feelings up front, but you're just asking what does it mean for you? Those sort of questions.
Speaker 3:The way that I, I guess, put a context around why it's worthwhile developing skills in this area is differentiation, because everyone will be positioning, all your competitors will be positioning their offers above the waterline and it'll be because we've got the best service, the best product features, the best case studies.
Speaker 3:That's all above the waterline. If you want to differentiate yourself, it's about addressing those above but also adding in below the waterline, and I think for a lot of reps, where it's a tough market, this is now a different way of differentiating themselves, but also building a really strong relationship with the people that matter in the organisation, because you're addressing what they need. A very, very large auto manufacturer out of Japan, and I remember that the key moment is when I had a one-on-one with the group CFO and he wanted my personal assurance that I'll be there throughout the whole implementation, because that bond had been created right. So it wasn't just company, you know, company to company buying. You were now building that personal relationship with the key decision maker and the key budget holder in the organization. So I look at it as differentiation is the angle, I totally get it.
Speaker 2:What are some of the ways that you help sales leaders teach their teams about rapport building, because it starts with rapport building?
Speaker 3:I'm here to sell. So if you, you know, and everyone is open to being helped, and if you frame what you're doing, and even if you know like in my current role where I'm advising organizations if I work out in the discovery phase that we're not a good fit, I will happily recommend someone else that is a better fit, because I just want to help them get to where they want to get to. Obviously, if it's something I can do, I'll take it further. So I think the starting point is the mindset. Then it's about starting the rapport building with, just, I mean, getting to know what's been happening in their world recently.
Speaker 3:If you're talking to someone on a Monday and Tuesday, getting to know what's been happening in their world recently, you know, if you're talking to someone on a Monday and Tuesday, tell me something that's been exciting, that's happened over the weekend or what are you looking forward to next weekend? Just something that's outside work obviously gets them talking about what's important to them outside the work environment. And you know, I was talking to someone just a couple of days ago and they were talking about doing some sort of jumping off cliffs was their thing. I think, whoa, but what a great way. And you can see again, once you start, they start talking about that, eyes light up because they're passionate about what they're doing outside work. So that's a key part to actually starting the rapport building is just to be talking as human beings. And again, the important thing is always that I'm here to help mindset rather than I'm here to close a deal mindset and then sort of taking it from there.
Speaker 2:How do folks coach that? Right, because you have some people on your team that are more predisposed to be relationship oriented. In fact, often you've got to get them to like not not be too relationship oriented and get focused on value. Uh, as well, but, but, um. But this idea of it's not just about rapport building. It's around this idea that you now can have a different conversation with a customer, you can get below the waterline so you know when a sales leader is, you know what are things they can do when they're with their team to help sort of foster what you call that mindset. Right, because it's not just about the rapport, it's about I only want to do business with you if I can help your business in some meaningful way. People can see right through the BS, exactly.
Speaker 3:Exactly right, and I think it's that authenticity, that genuine help, and part of it is, I find, role-playing really effective, where you kind of set up the rules of the game so people know, and then you pair them off and let them go and do it on their own. And we all know the most self-critical person is yourself, right when you see yourself on a video played back you know, what's right and what's wrong.
Speaker 3:So I find giving people a framework and then breaking people out and using something like a virtual team so they can record themselves and actually see what's happening, that's a great way of starting the learning. And then I think it needs to be reinforced by being there as a sales leader during a live sales call and giving the feedback after the call, obviously in terms of what worked really well and how you can just sort of refine the rapport building phase and the rapport building it doesn't need to be long right to be five, ten minutes, but it's enough so that you've got that comfort level before you then start talking about. So, tell me about the problems you've got. I actually find starting with telling me about the problems isn't as effective as starting with what are your goals where? What do you want to achieve in the next six or twelve months?
Speaker 3:Again, you're, you're, you're, you're putting people in that future state, and then you can start saying, okay, well, what are some of the barriers, the bumps in the road that are maybe going to stop you getting to that goal? So you then started and then you start talking about what I said earlier about saying, okay, well, let's imagine just for a minute. You've overcome these road barriers. What would that mean for the business and therefore, what would that mean for you? So it's kind of a bit of a progression but and it's important it's a bit of a stepping stone. You do need the previous step to be able to take the next step and get down there. So it's not a drive-by shooting sort of a sales call approach.
Speaker 2:Role plays I'm a huge fan. Hard to figure out is that. Do you view that as something, in your experience, more ad hoc in nature, that's done informally? Is it structured part of a more broad operating rhythm? What's worked the best and do you have examples of role plays that you've seen really help people improve their skills in a particular area?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think they've worked best when. So I like a little bit of structure in terms of I think you've got to show people what good is first, then let them go and do a role play, then allow them time to reflect and then repeat and rinse, so's, I think uh, uh, it's not a one-off thing. I think you've got to do two or three. I've done them. I've seen them work really well where you have a team of maybe 10 or 12 people and you do the one-to-many kind of uh, you know the rules of the game and then pair people off into little virtual rooms. They record themselves, they do it, come back, talk about what they've learned and then repeat with someone else. That sort of. I think the repetition is really important and to really encourage the rapid learning of something that's new and something that's a little bit uncomfortable for a lot of people to start with.
Speaker 2:How do you show what good looks like? Does that mean you have to leave from the front and start and do the first role play or something?
Speaker 2:Because you know, like sales reps, when you do role play you know they roll their eyes and like this isn't what they want to be doing and you know a lot of it's the discomfort with the way we're our own worst critic or the people that we work with are more intimidating than like the prospect, so we don't want to look bad, and stuff like that. How do you make it like more? How do you create the environment where people want to lean into it?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I pick someone from the audience and I'll go through and just show it, because you know it's not staged, it's real, right, and they'll see. Everyone will be watching and see, because you know what I walk through where you're building the rapport up front and you're asking about what's happening in their life. They'll see it all in action, right. And then after that I'll debrief and say, okay, these are the steps I went through. You remember I did this blah, blah, blah. Now your turn right. So that, I think, is you need a little bit of structure, but all I want to do is make sure that people leave a session like that confident enough to try it in the real world.
Speaker 2:So we can role play rapport building. What about cues like identifying cues to get below the waterline? Like what are some other role play situations where you've seen it really help people be more effective in getting to this other side of the decision process, the personal side.
Speaker 3:So one of the things we've found good is I go through and once I explain below the line, I ask people to just jot down on a whiteboard or whatever, what are all the little phrases you've heard that might be a clue, and very, very quickly you can get a board full of these phrases. And then I encourage people to say well, you know, if you hear this, what do you think that might be pointing to and therefore, what follow up question do you need to ask to get to identifying that? So we had a situation where, talking with a compliance software solution and they previously had positioned themselves in the auditing as a good auditor policing by us this is what you get by going through this sort of process they were able to change to saying we're more of an assurance, so be confident by using us. You're confident that when you go to the board there are going to be no nasty surprises and you're going to look good to everyone. That matters to you and that comes out by, I say looking for the clues, and they say that it's, it's.
Speaker 3:It's a I sort of position, this part of the exercise that I do with clients as a journal you, you guys, know what you're hearing from your client base, jot it all down and then as a group you start to, I guess, see where the common threads are. Because when I said to you earlier about the IT manager who wants to make sure the business takes on innovation, everyone kind of can relate to those sort of statements and it's a matter of, collectively, you know, jotting down what they all are and then going through and saying, okay, when we hear this, what are we going to ask as a follow-up question?
Speaker 2:to get to the real emotional driver, yeah, you know it's funny a lot of. There's different types of sales. There's evangelist selling, there's a competitive market selling, there's commodity based selling and it really is the. There's the cues, and the below the waterline is often the bigger driver than whether you have a better mousetrap than somebody else.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking about some of the historic examples of that. When you reflect on 43 quarters at Oracle, for example, do you feel like this was your differentiator, like your ability to sort of connect and sort of get to that emotional resonance, or the below the waterline aspects of like? Do you think that's what helped you sustain that long? Or, were you know, are there other circumstances as well?
Speaker 3:A number of circumstances, but that was probably the main differentiator, because it was all about delivering consistency quarter in, quarter out, and showing continued growth. That's what all sales leaders are tasked with, and this was, you know, doing it over a long period of time. This was one of the key secret sources and also, I guess, along with that, was genuinely wanting to help all my team be successful right and to help them to improve their own performance. So I think that's the, I guess, a couple of the things that were that contributed to that longevity. And also Oracle had a reputation, as you know, in terms of being quite ruthless and clients also expected an Oracle person to be a certain type of salesperson. By again adopting this approach, they came through as different and actually, yeah, they're actually here to help me and therefore, you know, it helped the team as a whole to be much more successful.
Speaker 2:So we covered a lot of ground. I mean, we went through what a pipeline looks like at the beginning of the quarter and deals stalling and the basic above the waterline sales conversation that's happening for 99% of all sales conversations a path to a different conversation which is on the other side, the below the waterline conversation, and some tactics to be able to do that. I love the concept of role-playing. I love the concept of this, like thinking about the personal impact side of this positive future state around it, looking for those cues in which to do it. Is there anything that you wanted to cover today that we didn't hit?
Speaker 3:Look, I think that's the main point, and I'm always conscious that. You know sales leaders are looking for an edge, and I found this to be probably quite central to my past. Success is to help my sales teams take on this different approach, and once you start, it's quite easy to start improving quite quickly, and I think that's the beauty of it, because clients appreciate it and you can see the team start to get energized once they see something like this working and it's also applicable in all parts of their lives right, it's not just in a sales thing. So I think we've covered off most of the things that I thought were probably important to share with your audience.
Speaker 2:Ash, if people want to follow up with you, what's the best way to find you?
Speaker 3:LinkedIn. I'm posting a couple of times a week just sharing ideas, so LinkedIn is probably the best way.
Speaker 2:Ash, it's great to see you. Thank you again for joining today. I look forward to talking to you again soon.
Speaker 3:Thanks, rick, really enjoyed it. Thank you Bye.
Speaker 2:Reflecting on the conversation with Ash Kalik. He outlined the classic conundrum most of us sales leaders face, and that is you enter a quarter and you look at a metric that tries to determine are we going to have a good quarter or not, and that is pipeline coverage. Do I have enough pipeline to be there in order to be able to forecast a successful quarter, which is what I'm held accountable to be able to do? And so you know, then I look, I said good, I've got the pipeline coverage there. But inevitably, pipeline quality is variable, and so, as the quarter progresses, what starts to happen? Well, deals stall, and then the end of the quarter becomes a bit of a fire drill where you're looking for the hero, or heroes in order to bring the deals across the line. That, with the sweat pouring off of us and limping through the finish line, we get to where we need to be. But boy, it didn't happen the way as smoothly as we had hoped when we were looking at that pipeline when the quarter began. I've definitely been in that situation and I know most of us have.
Speaker 2:Ash really leaned into the concept of above the waterline versus below the waterline. It's an interesting analogy. And above the line, below the line is a common term that I've heard in the past, but the above the line and below the line in the context that I've learned it in the past has been more about the power line and dealing with folks above and below that. But that's not what Ash was talking about. He was talking about above and below the waterline and in that context he's talking about the decision-making process of how deals actually get decided on and above the waterline being all the normal stuff with requirements and features and functions and the business problems and pains. And below the water line is the ripple effects as it relates to that sort of emotional connection of why people make decisions and how a future state that's positive will impact them personally, especially at the decision maker level, and Ash spent a lot of time in this episode talking about how to focus on that, and the interesting thing is that most sellers don't do it. They stay above the waterline and so being able to go below the waterline ends up being a differentiator for a key seller. I love the quote that people you know, make a decision emotionally and then rationalize it logically, and Ash is attempting to provide coaching and a playbook for leaders in order to adapt their game to meet that dynamic, and I love that Ash started talking about role plays.
Speaker 2:I've mentioned several times in my newsletter and on this podcast that there's just no practice in B2B sales, but Ash reminds us that it does not have to be true. He prescribed a bit of structure where the leader leads from the front and he shows, or she shows, what good looks like, and I love this. It's important for sales leaders to never ask the team to do something they wouldn't do themselves, and I personally just happen to love role plays. I seek out others on my own before a big call and I run through a few scenarios because I want those important moments in the call to go well. So it's not a bad thing.
Speaker 2:I don't know why there's a negative connotation associated with role plays. We don't want them to be a waste of time. Why doesn't this happen more? Why is there this bad stigma that's associated with it? There are skills to develop and practice is an amazing way to do it, and that, my friend, is what coaching is all about. So I want to thank Ash for joining us on Pillar Talk. I want to thank Ari Smolin for producing. I want to thank Isla and Sons of Summer for the tunes. I want to thank you for listening and we will see you next time. Take it easy the prices you paid.