Build Killers, Not Reps — The Sales Leadership Playbook

Most sales teams don’t fail because of strategy.

They fail because of leadership. Hiring wrong. Training poorly. Tracking the wrong KPIs. No structure. No standards.

And then wondering why pipeline doesn’t convert.

This episode breaks down what it actually takes to build, train, and scale high-performing sales teams — from hiring and firing, to coaching, to forecasting, to setting non-negotiables that drive performance.

It also goes deep into what separates average managers from elite ones:

Clarity. Standards. Accountability.

You’ll learn how to evaluate sellers based on numbers (not opinions), how to run teams with structure, and how to implement systems that actually scale.

From prospecting strategies that work, to qualification that improves forecast accuracy, to how AI is changing the role of sellers — this is the real playbook behind top-performing teams.

In this episode, you’ll learn

• How to hire, fire, and train sales teams effectively
• What great sales management actually looks like
• The non-negotiables every seller should follow weekly
• The KPIs that truly matter (and why)
• How to qualify deals to improve forecast accuracy
• A proven prospecting strategy that drives pipeline
• How to evaluate performance based on numbers
• How AI is changing how sellers operate
• What it takes to become an elite sales manager

Thanks to the partners supporting Confessions of a Seller.

🔗 Jason AI SDR by Reply
They’ve built one of the strongest multichannel outbound platforms in the market — taking teams from research to meeting booked in one system, enabling modern Allbound execution.

Exclusive Promotion for you. Apply the following codes at checkout, and you'll get an exclusive discount:

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

2026 is basically day year to jump into tech sales. And the only way to do that is if you have the right skills, the right management, and the right process in order to move forward and go through the ladder. In this episode, we are going to teach you, and you will learn exactly from the trenches from two special guests that we have today how to become a top performer and a lead seller. And that's exactly what you will learn. But before going there, Kevin, what do we have to say first? Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

We definitely cannot forget our main sponsor Reply IO with the All-in-One Outreach Solution, with their AI SDR, Jason. Jason AI, who books us the meetings while we're doing our podcast here. Absolutely. While we sleep, while we're taking a bath, while we're taking a shower. From prospecting to closing. All the way on. So yeah, if you want to know more information about Jason AI, look in the comment section. You can find all the information there. But uh without further ado, let's jump in into the episode.

SPEAKER_04 0:58

Let's do it. So welcome guys. Thank you for being here. I'm super excited and happy to have you here. So, Sonia, Tommy, old friends, uh, but I don't want to make the introduction. I want you to introduce yourselves. So, Sonia, if you want to start with you a little bit, so tell us about yourself and who you are, where are you doing, your sales background, and a little bit for the audience to know you.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

So, I'm Sonia. I'm sales manager in Revolution right now. I take care of the Western Europe market on the e-man side of it of sales. Before that, I used to work in different projects in teleperformance. I've been selling Google Ads, different PayPalClicks advertising. I built my own marketing agency back there. Then I worked for TikTok ads as well in teleperformance. Before that, I worked in TripAdvisor, more on the side of the fork and more of uh restaurants, hotels, and so on. But before tech, I used to work in fashion. Like that was my biggest passion. It was music and fashion.

SPEAKER_05 1:46

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

So I used to sell retail like B2C sales in a cortinglass, like the best school in Spain for sales, I have to say. So I started back then when I used to study music and then economy. Well, I was studying economy. I realized that I was getting paid more than the people that got out of the career and started working in banks. And I was actually working in a cortinglass, you know, and being promoted in area manager and so on in fashion. So this is how I started in sales, and this is where I am right now.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

All right. So I I already have, with that introduction, like 25 questions that I want to ask you. Save it. But I will save them uh for a moment. But I want to introduce Tommy and thank you for joining, man. And yeah, give give us your your best shot as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Absolutely. So thank you for having us. First of all, my name is Tomas. People call me Tommy as well. I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Um, I started my sales career actually in Revolut. Okay. Uh about five years ago. I was working before that as a data analyst in Buenos Aires after finishing my university studies there. And I joined Revolute and as an account executive, started selling, scaled up, became a manager for the Italian market, then scaled up once again. And now I'm gathering the whole uh Southern Europe team for mid-market, which is for companies of a bigger scale. So it was pretty much like a ladder episode in my experience as well. Not so much like Sonia has this different experiences in other companies, but for sure I've learned a lot working here in Revolut. So happy to share my experience with you guys.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

That's awesome. That's awesome. You, Sonia. Uh, you didn't mention how long have you been in Revolut? Four and a half years or something.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Four and a half, something like that, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 3:15

So you've been at the same time joining. Professor, yeah. So you saw the rocket ship starting, all right? So the whole thing.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

We saw the whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 3:23

Nice, that's amazing. That's amazing. So basically, what we're going to do today in this episode is walk through a lot of different topics from pipeline to management to coaching to training through KPIs and everything in between. So the first thing that I would like to ask for any one of you is understanding how you go through your daily operational, like how you handle 100 million tasks that you might have. Uh not so much from a revolute perspective, but from your personal sales skills.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Like and we know you can probably talk the whole day about it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 3:54

So, how do you see sales evolving? How do you put that into your own skills? How do you transmit that into your sellers? Uh, walk us through a little bit of your your way of going through the sales ladder and the sales psychology in in today's world.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

I go. Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Donald. I think that sales uh nowadays is something fundamental. I think that as you guys mentioned before about the AI and everything that's going on, it's very important to understand how to do a sale on a proactive way. This is why our job is so important. We work as uh team leaders. Um potentially we we work with our sellers to give them the tools and the sufficient knowledge in order to portray and to get along their job as good as possible. Our job is also to make their lives easier. We want them to have fun and to come here to work and to to build up as much as we can. Our job ends to the point where the where the counter executive of the seller scales up. So we need to build them up to the moment where they can scale up within the company. So it's about how we manage the multi-function um things that are going happening on a day. Is it dealing with internal things? Is it dealing with clients? Is it going to our upper management, creating projections, creating um rejections as well in terms of how we do this, how we work with clients? Um, it's it's many things going on in one same role in just crazy. The frame of one day. Like many things can happen. Sales is an is a roller coaster of emotions, as I as I feel it, at least. It's like you're not the best seller if you close this big dealer, and you're not the worst one if you don't close it. It's about how you mitigate the risk of being the best. Knowing how to be the best is also knowing how to be the worst in certain times.

SPEAKER_02 5:37

I think I love that. I have a direct question for you because being a people manager, I think you have to be more like a psychologist than actually like a real sales manager, right? Uh instead of coaching sales tactics, etc. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit more there? Um what is like your feeling in uh about that?

SPEAKER_01 5:56

I think that one of the things that has driven success, at least in my experience, maybe Sonia can share as well, is how we get along with our our sellers. Like when you create this bond, this connection with them in a way that they trust your strategy and then they want to do it the best way possible, because they know that you are guiding the way as good as good as you can. So creating this bond, understanding how a fell uh how a seller feels, getting to greet them in the morning, for example, in a daily touch point, what we do every day is see how they wake up, how they how they are prepared to go into the day, and how they want to really do their job as best as we can. And also something that is not it's not minor is the trust, of course. It all comes down to how you trust your sellers because you can teach them until a certain point, but from there onwards is how they give get these tools and do the best they can. So that's what we do on a day-to-day.

SPEAKER_04 6:47

Do you think there is a um and I want to jump into your point of view as well, it's a direct correlation between what you're saying, Tommy, in terms of if they trust me, if we have like a bond, a strong bonding and a strong relationship, at some point they will perform better, or there are some other things that besides we can be best friends and they can trust me and I can trust them and they can respect me. If they don't go through the strategies, they don't follow sort of the the process that we need to go through, they will fail.

SPEAKER_01 7:15

I think that it's a very interesting question, actually. I think that trusting somebody is because you know where they come from. When you know what they did, you know who they are. Trust is not something you build from one day into another one. You need to show yourself as a leader, somebody that they can follow instinctively, and they will get to a certain point. Of course, there is a correct in my experience, there is a correct correlation between the trust that you have with your sellers and how they portray yourself. And from there onwards, you're gonna build a solid team. I think that solid teams are what makes uh a company great. And that's what I always try to do. Like give them also the chance to have a retroactive back and forth. Like I'm here as a leader, I try to give you as much tools as I can, but then I'm also gonna hear your feedback. I want to learn from you and I want to expand. Uh, for example, giving Sonia's experience, she's worked in many different fields. I can learn a lot from her. If we were working together, it would be also a start point for me to learn how to do my job better.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

All right. What do you think, Sonia? So basically, going back to the performance thing and building this.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

I agree completely. I think sales is about two things, right? First is the system. Like if you can have an average salesperson, but if you give them a proper system, they could be exceptional sellers. Okay. So there are two things that you have to measure properly the KPI, the sales funnel, the conversion rate between the stages, where is the gap of the performance, right? And what where are we aiming to get? A lot of things to take in consideration. I'm very data-driven kind of manager. So I would like to see like the market share. How much can we absorb of this market share this quarter? Therefore, what KPIs do we need to get there? Then measure the gap of performance and then set up like a proper pipeline hygiene and uh sales uh cadence as well to the customer and uh methodology to prospect as well, right? But there's another point, which is what uh Tommy was saying, is like the bond is created with a psychological safety that you have to create in the environment, especially in sales.

SPEAKER_04 9:03

That safety net with that. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 9:05

A lot of people come and go, they don't feel part of a company because in sales it's very challenging to feel part of a project of a family of a company, right? Because you come and go and you see a lot of people fired because this is happening in every single company, right? So it's your job as a manager first to be an umbrella to this situation so they don't feel the pressure and stress that you are under to build that trust with them and the day fact that they know that this is a psychological safety area. On the talent side that you were saying, like the most competent seller, even if they trust you and they trust your action plan, let's say, would they be a good salesperson? Could be or not, because for me it depends on uh how motivated they are and how skilled they are. So depending on the skill and motivation, there could be someone who is very highly skilled, like the top salesperson ever, but is not motivated for some reason, therefore will not perform the other way around. Someone that is not very skilled, but very highly motivated. Or hungry or exactly. Therefore, if you become like a telling leader and you tell them what to do in order to get there, it can become a great salesperson. So I think there's a lot of things that you have to handle.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

Yeah, there's a gray area there that you can convert someone that has no sales skills into a killer, yeah, or someone that has the best sales skills into the worst performer because they they well they don't have the right guidance. I I want your question as well. But we're always talking, and we were talking in previous episodes as well, about the importance of management. You were telling you you you mentioned it twice, and I think I couldn't agree more. That it's I'm here to take your BS, all your problems as a manager, and I'm going to give you all the tools and resources in order for you to take them and then succeed. But most of the managers are not doing that or they don't see it in this way. So a manager can make or break your career as well, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:46

So you you mentioned a really good point, being an umbrella, right? It's uh not just, you know, uh for you as a manager, I think uh it's really important as well to filter all the internal pressure and don't transmit it to your sales team. Or how do you see see that point? Because out of my feeling, I I think all the best managers I had so far were really people who filtered all the bullshit and then were able to, you know, keep the environment in the team good enough.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

100%. Imagine you and I have a one-on-one, and I have like the worst day ever, and I yell at you, like I baff at you. Your day will be the worst day ever, too.

SPEAKER_03 11:21

Ten times worse.

SPEAKER_00 11:23

Like my manager just told me there. Sometimes I had a one-on-one with my manager, and I came out like, did I do something wrong? Like, what's going on? Are they planning to fire me? And paranoia kicks in, you know, and you go, crazy. So it's very important to you have the worst day, you you get a walk with your dog, you know, you chill, you come back fresh, and then you start a one-on-one, even if you have to delay the one-on-one. But it's very important to beat that umbrella because otherwise there's no control on emotions.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

That's great. What do you think, Tommy? I think I agree. I agree very much with with Sonia here. I also believe that managers also hold the responsibility of delivering for the team. Like we represent a bunch of 12, 15, 10, 5 people, whatever, and and we are responsible for those numbers. So many times when things go are going right, it's a seller who did a great sale. But when things are going wrong, okay, we need to we need to put on the mask and say, okay, what's going on here? And present these numbers in a way that it's also proactive. And we also we are also sellers, guys. Like we never stop selling. We don't sell a product.

SPEAKER_04 12:19

That's really, really important to really highlight that.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

We don't do cold calling, maybe, but we do sell our team as a solid team. We sell our strategy to our team as a way of going forward. It's sales is a never-ending job. You can sell outside of outside of the work environment, you're always selling as well. When you really learn how to how to do this this art, then it you feel more confident. I think that sales can be resumed in into confidence. 100%.

SPEAKER_00 12:44

You can even sell where to go for dinner.

SPEAKER_01 12:46

You can sell whatever you want.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

You have to be selling all day.

SPEAKER_04 12:48

You just don't realize why it's so bastard in terms of a profession. Sometimes, I mean, we feel it as a sellers, right? Even from my point of view, right now, as a consultant, so to speak, or freelance or or coach or trainer, you put the name, like, oh, you have another guy that will uh train us or will teach us how do we sell. Sometimes we feel like it's a bastard profession, right? Or am I wrong? Or how do you how do you feel about it?

SPEAKER_01 13:13

Absolutely. It's a as I was saying before, it's a roller coaster of emotions consistently. Like one day you are on the top and then the next one you're in the bottom. So you have to learn how to live in this gray area to understand when things are going well, know that when you get to the top, things are gonna go down eventually. So learn this is also, I think it's a also a school in life. No, you learn when things are going right, to be conservative when things are going wrong. Okay, it's not the end of the world, we're gonna scale up from here onwards.

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Exactly. And when you're in outbound, you're literally a freelancer. Yeah. Like if you have to prospect your own pipeline, you have to do the whole sales market, close it up, sell it, dah, dah, dah. Your commissions are on you, even your salary is on you because commission is a big part in sales, right? So you become a freelancer in a very early stage of your career, like at the beginning of your career, it's a lot of learnings. You run your own company when you decide to do that.

SPEAKER_04 14:01

I think those are the best, if you're doing outbound or whoever that is watching us, um, the best skills that you can ever develop is doing outbound. It's like getting a list, uh, forget about the AI, forget about the formal tools, automations, and whatsoever. And get a list, pick a phone or get some email and start trying to with value, with relevancy, in the right time, in the right with the right message, trying to sell it's fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

And I I think I mentioned it in one episode. I think I learned more as in one year as an SDR than uh four years in my university in in Germany. So it's really uh top. Um if you don't know what to do, I think sales is definitely a good profession to get into. And if you have good leaders, like you guys, you know, who can leverage you um uh over time, I think it's really important to have good leaders, or if you don't have a good leader, because it's happening as well, find a mentor. Yeah, right. It's it's really, really, really helpful. I had that at the beginning and it leveraged like I get like a 10 times faster.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

Telling people like uh what works and then automatically you get a better You already made the mistakes that you that you know even if you don't know what to do, like if you're into sales, you can prospect companies non-stop, different industries to figure out what to do, like what do you like and find out everything about them and the other way around? Like what my account executives told me in every company that I work, like I don't know what to prospect, and I'm not motivated. This happens a lot. Yeah, I feel like the whole market share is already in the CRM and touched by someone. It's like okay, what do you want to do next? If you want to create your own company, what it is about, like I don't know, a music label, tourism. Thinking outside of the box, you know, marketing agency. There you go, prospect marketing agencies and find out what they do and get struck all the information, and then you will know how to do it in the future, right? It's all about turning around sales, is like in everything that you do.

SPEAKER_04 15:44

So you mentioned a lot of things about training, bonding, skills, data-driven. Uh, I can feel and I can see, and I already know you guys, but uh, you're leading different markets as well, and different types of companies, and and your experience is a little bit different in terms of the companies that you've been working on as well. Can you walk us through, Sonia, for example? What are those strategies, top three um uh go-tos that you will never miss that are non-negotiables for you within your Monday morning or Friday evening? That you say, I need to go through these KPIs. This is why I measure them. Could be KPIs, could be strategies for prospecting, how you coach your team. Uh, those non-negotiables that for you are the most important in every um in every seller that you apply as a manager.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

For me, like any icon executive, SDR, whatever, there's something that I need them to do, which is reading data all the time. Sometimes in all the companies, you have an access to a huge amount of data and they don't even read it. You know, when they start new in a company and you join her, they would always try to do their own strategy, most likely the strategy that they had in the previous company, right? That's a mistake. First thing that you need to do is check all the dashboards that you got. Like if you work with Metaverse or whatever you do, like what was the accounts that gave more revenue, for example, this quarter last year. First thing that you need to learn is to read the data and then analyze it. And of course, emulate what's working already, right? Then if it works already, you have a ramp up when you start, when you reach your target, then you can start making your own strategy. But something that I think it's a big mistake and it happens a lot and it's not negotiable for me, it's not reading the data. Like if I ask you, you you just ended your onboarding, your training, whatever, right? And I tell you, what are you gonna start prospecting? And you tell me like random things, like travel agencies in I don't know, in summer, you know, when they're super busy, you cannot even call them. I will kill you. Like what I expect you to do.

SPEAKER_04 17:34

So you can read you can read the seller 100% through their skin when they are BSU or DR saying.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

When they're new joiners, it's like exactly and if because I want to know what you don't know how to do and I want to coach you to do it. So let's read the data together, let's see what to do, let's emulate what already works, and then we'll start doing your own strategy because everybody has a different piece, a different mindset, strategy, whatever. And you adapt it to every single uh sales that you have because everyone is different. But I think that's non-negotiable for me. Like reading the data, the most relevant, which is what was successful already, emulate now, and what's the gap of performance right now? I really like to measure conversion rates on anything.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

In every stage of every sale.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

I'm obsessed with it.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

So I have to driven girl we have here.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

How many calls does it take you to get to a discovery call, right? From that discovery call, how many more calls to get a meeting and a demo? And why did you not negotiate money in the demo, right? Like, or demo, whatever you do, but whatever the sales stages are, I love to measure everything else.

SPEAKER_02 18:35

What happens in each? Yeah. Really interesting. Well, I think when you are able to read the data, of course, you can get so many things out of it, right? But as a manager as well, correct me if I'm wrong, but there's a thin line, right? In having the data and put it in front of your uh salespeople and then say, do this or find out this way of um having like the micromanagement part compared to you know being like there and supporting them as much as possible. How are you able to manage that, right?

SPEAKER_00 19:03

Always ask for feedback. Like whenever I have to do, imagine that your team is not hitting target and you think they're not gonna hit the quote at the end of the quarter, then you have to start thinking about an action plan. What am I gonna do, right? I don't do an action plan and deliver it to my team and tell them this is what we're gonna do. Never, never, never. It's a democracy. We have to vote, we have to think. I want their brains to think because I have the best people on my team. Yeah, it's like a band. You need someone who plays guitar, another one plays the bass, and another one plays the drums, and without the drums, like you have no band, you know? So I like to ask every single one on my teammates, what do you think? Give me feedback, what would you do to make the situation better? And then the action plan is built by everyone, and everybody is on board with your plan and they feel it, and therefore they support you.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

This is like a real leadership, right? Because you just in one direction. And they need to follow you. That's not leadership, right?

SPEAKER_04 19:51

It's really back and sourced.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, like follow you.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

What do you think, Tommy? So back to the question like what are your non-negotiables or your strategies to go through your weekly operations in order to make your team more successful?

SPEAKER_01 20:06

I think that's many times for the audience that is listening to us, many times sales is a perceived is perceived as a soft skill role. It's a soft skill position when in actually there's a lot of numbers behind to it. There's a lot of metrics, there's a lot of things that you can measure, being number of calls, number of meetings, conversion rates. You can have a look at that, you can have a look at the estimated gross profit that a company might be able to generate in the near future, how you can anticipate what the client is going to do. Also, tendencies within within the year time of the year. If we're going towards a Christmas um time of the year, we're going to into Easter to summer to winter. It varies a lot, and you have to be able to read this to be able to develop deliver it to your sellers. I think this picks up on what Sonia was just saying about understanding which things made sense a year before. We stand one year, one year back, what was going on in that time of the year, and we can bring it back to today. So data, fundamental, in my opinion. I always try to portray the numbers. We have a lot we work with a lot of sheets of numbers to understand the metrics of how sellers are um working on a day-to-day basis. So for them to understand and comprehend what is going on, I think that builds up to what we want to create here, which is a strong team. So what we do every day is we go over pipeline reviews, we check how many activities they've done per day, which which companies they are seeking. Maybe what I try to do always is bring up one or two account executives to speak about how some of the deals that they've been working on in the last couple of weeks, or one strong win we had. Many times I also involved other stakeholders within with our positions, being people who work on a certain product, to come into the morning meeting and just talk about something different. I think that's creating this sense of engagement with our with our sellers and involving them in the decision making process also helps you have a stronger team.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

And I think for from from your you you're managing different territories, right? And i i the interesting part in in Europe is for every single A seller who has their own territory, you need a different kind of strategy and a different kind of approach, right? And you need to understand it as you guys, as a sales manager, you cannot sell to the what would happen if I send you seven emails in Germany. Yeah, they will see you. You will sue me. They will sue you. Yeah. Like you have to, and you guys are like the I wouldn't call them marionettes, like coordinating them, right? And then helping them to understand it. Some of them there may be fresh sellers who have to understand that. So it's really, I think for the listener out there, it sounds like kind of complex, but it's even more complex if you're in the system, right?

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Of course. I mean, there is always the cultural barrier, no, of course. Uh every country has their own way to approach. You cannot approach somebody in the southern Europe like you approach in the western or in the Nordics. It's a completely different type of approach. People perceive your product differently, they know more about financial institutions or about the complexities of nowadays, or maybe they are more like, okay, for example, the people in the south of Italy, just to give an example, they are more traditional. They like things more traditional, they work with what they know and they're happy with that. Okay, how do you break this barrier and introduce a product like this? That's why you need to train your sellers so that they can sell your product intuitively. I think that's that's something that I, at least in my teams, I do a lot. Like, talk to me about the product that we sell. Explain to me as if I didn't know anything about anything. Go to it as at the basic level, and then we'll scale up to complexities, to numbers, to fees, to commissions, to whatever you want. But if the if the other person perceives the value into what you're trying to sell, I think that creates a stronger bond with the client and endures the the sale. Ultimately, we want the person to be happy with what we sell and be able to become a loyal client for us and bring referrals and scale from there up. So if you're able to train your sellers in a way that when they reach out to to in in outbound, for example, um, they need to understand where they're selling. It's not the same in the south of Italy and then it's selling to Madrid or selling in London, it's a completely different approach.

SPEAKER_02 24:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

So would it be fair to assume that basically every seller needs to develop like a 100% different personality traits? Yeah, I would say if they are selling in more than yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

Not only in the in the territory, also when you get into a video call, for example, and you see the person who is on the other side, you need to adapt your Twitch. Absolutely. If you sell to a guy who's 25 years old and knows about TikTok, Instagram, and the things we use already, okay, the seller's gonna be much more oriented to stuff that he already knows.

SPEAKER_04 24:27

If you're talking to, for example, who's on a plus 60 years old uh business owner.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

You're gonna adapt yourself in a pitch which we're gonna go slower. You're gonna understand that the person might know not know how to share the screen. It's things that we that we've got.

SPEAKER_04 24:42

Tone pace, mirroring, matching, all the same thing. So I have two questions now that you're mentioning all these topics. I will ask them again later on. But the first question is we are talking about KPIs, activity levels, uh, lagging indicators, leading indicators. What are those three KPIs, if you have to name one, two, or three top three KPIs that are the ones that you always track that are giving you some sense of insights in order to take action on something?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

For sure. I think that for me, the one of the most important ones is pipeline growth. I need to see the pipeline grow. Can you elaborate on that? Yes. So pipeline growth means that when you're looking for companies, you're gonna feed them into a CRM, ultimately, the system that we use in sales. When you feed these companies into the CRM, you're gonna categorize them either by industry or by annual revenue or by the projection in terms of how much they're gonna be using of the account or in any different criteria. But I need to see the pipeline growth sales is a is a numbers game. When the more clients you have, or the more potential clients you have within your pipeline, the more chances you have of closing them and converting them into what we call an NAB in our role. It's new active business. Ultimately, we want the clients to be started using our account. So tracking the pipeline growth, number of activity levels, can be growth, can be calls, can be meetings, can be a number of emails, LinkedIn messages. Activity levels are fundamental. Yeah, then we're gonna track the top 10 accounts. Like that's what I focus on. Perfect. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 26:10

Uh for me, uh pipeline is super huge deal for me as well. But I need to see like hygiene on the pipeline because they can say, like, yeah, I have four times the coverage to my target to the pipeline. So basically we can combine.

SPEAKER_04 26:22

So asking the question again, it's what are those KPIs that you would say, hey, these KPIs are telling me something, and those are the ones that I measure. Pipeline growth that I think that is really interesting, connected to pipeline hygiene, so we don't get into the having whatever the account it is, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:37

For me, it depends if you work yearly or quarterly and what product you're selling, right? But imagine that you work four quarters, and I want you to have a pipeline for the whole year. I don't mean a gap to the target, to the whole yearly target. I mean like if you know there's a seasonality in the product that you're selling, you have to take that in consideration.

SPEAKER_05 26:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

As I said before, you're not gonna call a travel agency in August. Like they're not there, they're traveling. They literally they have so many customers they don't need you, right? You're gonna call them like two months ahead if your sales cycle is one month and one month of onboarding, for example, right? You need to plan ahead because otherwise then you hear this complaint a lot like everything is on the CRM, I cannot prospect anything, everything is taken. Yeah, right, because you didn't think about that, you just think about the short term, which is this quarter or this year, think about the long run because otherwise you're lost. Like someone else did think about the long run and the whole year. So for me, having this strategy in the pipeline, like by seasonality, depending on the target, and having a gap to the target, four times a gap to the target depending on what target we're talking about in the pipeline growth is super important. Pipeline IG for me is not just about I qualify this customer, I say it's high quality, low quality, let's say, and I add a random value. It's like, uh do you add notes here? Do you have follow-ups? How often do you have follow-ups? Am I seeing the same note week over week? Like you're not even calling this person, but you keep telling me this is a huge big bet, you know? If it's that big, how come I'm not in any of those meetings? You know, like you would not trust it or believe it. So accuracy is key for me.

SPEAKER_04 28:01

I like that because that reminds me to not even right now when I'm training sellers, and correct me if I'm wrong, um, but also in my roles as manager as well. Like every single one-on-one with my AEs full cycle or BDRs. It's like pipeline review. You go through the accounts, it's like this is an amazing account. They love our product, uh, but they are on holidays. They tell me, they told me that we are going to move forward next week. I will follow up. Next account, same story, right? So it's not just about the optimistic of the seller and how the gut feeling is telling us that we will close it, but what's the strategical next step that we will define?

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And that's basically the strategy, right? That's why for me it's very important that uh for everyone outside outside there listening as well, it's important that you have stages within your pipeline. You move the stages in a way that then you can come to the one-to-one, you can come to your manager and tell a story.

SPEAKER_04 28:54

What's the best way to use those stages? Because at some point, as a seller, either someone that is super new or someone this happened to all of us, but someone super new get so structured into those stages, like meeting booked, uh demo held, negotiation proposals and close won, close lost. And the ones that are super tenured or super senior in the in the role may say, hey, you know what, I don't trust this because I already know how to do it. So I don't care where they are. How do you manage this with the center?

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Like an economic executive is a freelancer, they have to know their business. If they cannot tell you how much am I gonna do this year or this quarter, they don't know their business. So there's some sort of thing.

SPEAKER_04 29:34

So they have to know their numbers 100%.

SPEAKER_00 29:36

They have to know their numbers. So if you don't know the stages, like how close they are to to close the deal, then how do you forecast? You don't know how long it's gonna take, right? So this is what I correlate with the stages. The stages are forecasting.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

For me, um I agree very much with what Sonia was saying. For me, stages is a way for them to come to me and tell me a story. If you're gonna be using the first stage, you just leave it there and move it when you think there is an opportunity. Like if you want to use it in your own way, it's fine. If it makes sense and and and I can see towards the end of the pipeline, the ones that are about to close, okay. If the ones before you're you're tweeting in in some way specially, okay, that's fine. It has to be for me intuitive that I come to your pipeline and I say, okay, this person is understands how to work in this environment. And for this to happen, they need to tell me a story that makes sense. It's all about the sense.

SPEAKER_02 30:25

Because the important part maybe as well for our listeners, because you have to justify as well what you commit to your manager at a later stage, right? And if you uh if they tell you bullshit, then you you just re replicate. So you need to have to be.

SPEAKER_04 30:39

You cannot protect them as well because you are protecting your team at some point.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

And for them too. Like, imagine you're an accountant executive and you get sick.

SPEAKER_04 30:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:46

I hope not. And I hope nothing happens ever, right? But you get sick, then I have to take over your customers. How would I? If there are no.

SPEAKER_04 30:55

It's the worst nightmare, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Exactly. Like, okay, I have to go to your calendar, check your meetings, and then take over and help you. But how? If you do not left any information, the stages are not relevant. Like nothing is relevant for you. What are we gonna do with this?

SPEAKER_04 31:07

You know, what is your go go-to strategy? Because this is something that I see, I don't care what industry we can talk about across every industry, every stage, every funnel, every seller in every market, and no matter if it is SB or enterprise, there is, I would say, I can bet that it's not more than 5%, 10% of the sellers that knows and understand their numbers. That is exactly what you're saying. Yeah. What's your go-to strategy for someone to understand and learn how to forecast, how to prep their pipeline, how to um protect their own business?

SPEAKER_01 31:38

I think this all sums up to doing a good qualification. When they are qualifying a lead correctly, they understand the value there is. And as they go evolving within a deal, they will be re-qualifying this pipeline many, many times. The idea is that when they know more about the client, they will put more information into the system. This will help them also predict closed date, for example, which is very important. When are you gonna be closing this account? When is it gonna be starting using the platform that we sell them or or the system or whatever? Like when you understand the closed date, you can also create a projection. Okay, this I'm gonna close in in the next quarter, and the client explain to me, or I can see the balances, or I can understand the physiognomy of how they are working in a way that allows them to create a strong projection. I think that it's about them having ownership of their numbers. Think of it in this way: we're dealing with 10, 15 people reporting to us with a pipeline of hundreds of potential leads and accounts. Like if they're not able to qualify correctly, then they would also lose track of what they are what they have as well.

SPEAKER_04 32:34

I love what you're saying. And let me let me jump into this topic because I think that this is topic, this is a topic where I I dive into it every single day. That is qualification. So, what you're saying is basically there is an analysis or a correlation between, hey, you need to understand your numbers in order to forecast in the right way. In order to do that, you need to be really good at qualifying, and qualifying it, it's not one stage of the of the sales cycle, because that's another misunderstanding that every seller has. That it's I jump into the discovery call, that's discovery, then I go to demo call, I am not discovering anymore. You're always discovering in order to close. My question, so here is you're talking about um results and efficiency. This is a framework that I use a lot that is the rec framework, that is results, efficiency, and competencies. Every time that I train someone, I go through results and efficiency both together, that is activity levels, metrics, pipeline, hygiene, pipeline progression, and all the numbers regarding the data. And then once a month, once every two weeks, depending on the on the client, we go through competencies. That is, what are the skills that will impact the efficiency and the results potentially? So within the competencies, and connected to what you're saying, Tommy and Sonia as well, what are those strategies monthly, on a monthly basis or on a weekly basis that you can recommend on terms of how do I give my team sales skills specifically? How to qualify better, how to sell better, how to ask better questions, how to go through the funnel better. Is there anything that you can share here?

SPEAKER_00 34:01

I mean, for me, it's very important that they keep discovering. I mean, when you stop discovering and doing questions, you're basically being customer success or whatever else is there in the world, but not sales. Like for me, if you don't keep discovering, how are you gonna get referrals? Like if you want your life to be easier, then you know, if you like your life to be easier and you would like to hit your quota without being super stressed, prospecting, then referrals is your way. Right? Word, mouth to mouth, good word on your work that's getting referrals and getting free companies. It's like getting inbounds, literally, right? Like effortless. So you just have to keep discovering. Like imagine you have a consultancy, I don't know, then I can ask you what do you care the most? Your customers, the lifetime value of your customers, da-da-da, and try to see if there's any way that you could recommend me to all your customers, to my product, you know? So I think if you stop doing discovery and I should be doing that by the way after this episode.

SPEAKER_02 34:52

To to add something.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

I agree. No, it's 100% accurate.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

And as well, like if you discover and you understand the clients better and better, you know, you learn more about the industry and you can replicate just the information you learn to the competitor, to other companies. Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:06

So it's really like a they're missing information.

SPEAKER_02 35:08

Like discovery is a gold mine, actually, for uh prospecting.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

And to look like an industry expert as well. Like, if you're gonna call a marketing agency to sell whatever product you have, and you extract all the information, you will cut the following in marketing agency and you will say market insights. Yeah, and they will feed you like a professional. So it's a win-win game that you keep asking questions and extracting all the information.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

That's crazy. One part, yeah, sorry, go ahead, please. Maybe jumping back to the first one, because as a salesperson, we are like the lonely wolves, right? We we we see our target, we have our quota to reach. But one part let what what we had in our last sales kickoff meeting was how many of the individual lonely wolves actually know what is your quota? Because you have also a quota, right? But uh many of us, we just know our quota, and our manager asks, who of you know what is what was my quota, what is my quota this year? Um how was my quota last year? Or how was it two years ago? No one knew. And if if you are a team and really want to reach that quota together, right? I think it's really interesting um to know what is the your quota, what you have to reach together as a team.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

How you see see that point? Uh at least my strategy is is pretty particular. Um I like to be transparent with my team. I think transparency is key. When they know what the stakes are, they're gonna not only work for their own safety, but they want their team to be to be strong enough and to be portrayed as a strong team within their organization. So what I do is I create files where I share to them, okay, instead of only seeing your number and focusing only like a horse who goes like that straight, you know, um, just give them visibility of how the other people are are are running their their numbers as well. Love it. How are they, how many clients are they closing, what's the strategy, what's the top 20 accounts that the team is currently having? And so that you involve them as well. What I want to emphasize here is something that is very important, is that new joiners have to be working with tenured uh sellers as well. There has to be this way of them body, yes, they have to be one same thing that that correlates exactly the same. And new new joiners, for example, will never know what that what the tenured sellers are are doing if I don't give them the visibility enough. It's like gamification and internal competition competition that's it is as a team. It's an internal it's a comp it's a consistent competition between themselves.

SPEAKER_02 37:25

I love that when I say all my name at the top of the dashboards, you know.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

I always want to be at the top. And if you are down, you want to fight to be there because it's a shame on you, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:33

So what I will try to emphasize as well, bringing up on what I was just saying, that I agree with you guys, of course. Oh, is you want to be on the top of the of the chart. That's where that's the objective, no? But why don't we focus on our team first? Okay, what happens outside our team, it's fine. I think that Sonia can share with me as well. We we have pretty similar um management styles. Like we care about our team, like our family in a way. Yeah, um, we want them to compete against each other, which is fine, but in a way that they can also learn from each other. It's not about seeing the global chart and saying, okay, I want to be on top. Um, but what's actually gonna help us evolve as a team? Because ultimately that's what we want. We want our team to grow and to expand and to keep it solid. We don't want the team to be with two people leaving and coming back and forth. That creates a create a break inside the team, and that's what falls it apart. That's what makes also our lives much more difficult. Because one when one seller leaves, we have to take on the pipeline, we have to distribute it. It's more work for us. I want to keep our sellers engaged, and that's why we always try to give them as much information as we have of what's going on in the team, the success cases, so they can build up from there as well.

SPEAKER_04 38:36

You mentioned something key before jumping into another topic that I have in mind, that it's break something that breaks the team or it's more difficult to manage them, it's when you have people coming and going, and then if you have new people joining as well. So, can you walk me through a little bit how you deal with inheriting new guys from different teams, if that's the case, for example, or building teams from scratch. Um, how do you manage this in order to not break that powerful love and beautiful caring that you have between the teams?

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Absolutely. I think it all sums up to us, no, the figure of the manager. Managers break or make teams. I think that that's fundamentally. I agree. One thousand mil percent. If you know how to make a team, you can have people coming, going, new teams, new people from uh different places. But once they see how the team, how the flow works within the team, they will get involved. And also it's our job, at least how I do it, I know Sony as well. We have our top tiers within the team. Okay, these are the guys that I want to delegate some responsibility, they're gonna help me to continue with this flow, even if the ones before that that are uh on the bottom leave. And who are our top tiers? That's gonna vary. It's not always the same guys. Yeah, maybe one guy is doing really well. Okay, I'm gonna give them a step up here, and then then internal team leads or all the time, like giving them the price of okay, I'm gonna delegate you the responsibility of this new joiner because you're doing great. I want you to teach them this guy. Maybe next court you're not doing so great. Okay, maybe I'm gonna give this responsibility to other one. They always want to be engaged, that's what you want to create a sense of engagement about apart from the commissions, the targets, yeah, and everything that goes on. Like I try to focus only on what is controllable, which is my team. And I need my team to be solid, and that's why I create this sort of projects. For example, once I had this project that was called Grupitos, which in which in English is small groups. Grupitos Project was a project where I selected like three, four team leaders within my team with new joiners, and I put them together in a strategic way, like either one top performer, one long performer, one that is uh goes to the Madrid office, for example, with the guys who go there, or I select them, or for example, girls with with who with other girls or boys with boys. Like I try to do it in a way that is cohesive for them to be more engaged with the people that they feel more confident, or how what I feel they will be more confident. And that's part of our job here with Sonya as well, is you got to know your people. Once you know your people, you know how to mix them together in a way that they're gonna learn and and engage with each other and ultimately you're gonna bring more results.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

And you need to be their best sponsor. I think that's super important. Like whenever they feel that they have this protection and psychological safety, the next step for me in building trust and having a very strong team with less rotation is that they know that you're gonna be their best sponsor ever.

SPEAKER_01 41:20

Support it.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

If you want to become a manager, exactly. But if you want to become a manager, you will do that job with me. I will teach you how I do, how I report, how I see the numbers, what am I measuring every week? I will delegate you things like when I'm out of the office, you will take care of the team, you will do this and that. If I have two, three people that want to become a manager, my first question will be getting back to the other point is what's my quota? I don't know. Then how are you gonna become a manager ever if you're not thinking about the big picture? Like if this team is not performing, how are we gonna create another team? We cannot create more teams within this market if we're not succeeding. So, why don't you care about my quota?

SPEAKER_04 41:56

So basically, learning you're helping them on top of everything that we are discussing here, you're helping them developing the skills for the next role in the current role. So, whenever they jump into a sales manager role, because this is something that we were talking about as well with Kevin. It's most companies are promoting the top sellers to managers automatically, because I don't know what why is that or what is the reasoning behind, but most likely, I mean, the skills that you need for being a sales manager or for being the top seller has nothing to do with each other, right?

SPEAKER_00 42:25

I think a therapist would be a better thing.

SPEAKER_04 42:27

Exactly, it's completely different.

SPEAKER_01 42:28

So why this happened? We help them to help us to help them. To help them and to help to help the company, and then if you understand the perfect summarizer, can you repeat that? Yeah, we help the sellers to help us so we can help them again. Yeah, and that's it.

SPEAKER_04 42:44

We can end the episode, right? Yeah, yeah. Thanks guys for listening. Exactly. Thank you for fine, and that's it. No, but but that's a great point. And again, I every time that they say something, I have more questions about that topic. That's insane because I want to jump into uh a topic that is super relevant to everyone right now, that is AI, how AI is transforming the way we sell, how do you see AI replacing some jobs or some tasks? But before getting there, I had right now I have two more questions or two more ideas that I would like to discuss with you. That it's the first one what would be that go-to strategy, prospecting strategy, or yeah, selling prospecting strategy that whenever someone joins your team, you say, Hey, do this because this is already tested and we know that it works for this specific product. And the second question, but let's jump into that third question. Like, what is the strategy for prospecting that you would say, tell me for example?

SPEAKER_01 43:39

What I always try to do with new joiners is ask them what they like. What do you like? What do you do? What does your family do? What peop what do you know? Which industries you would you like? If you like, for example, Sony Allies Allowed Music, I would say, okay, let's work with music. What I always try to say is, okay, think of it on a studio. What happens within a studio? Where do camera cameras come from? Where the lighting comes from. Who produces the music? Who are the artists? Where where that where does everything come from? And I ask them to scale from there onwards. Like think of it in a way that where you feel comfortable, you're going to be able to sell better and understand better how to do this. So I try to give them this food and then also seasonality. Like, where are we standing towards this time of the year? Now, for example, we're towards the mid-March, for example. Okay, we're going here in Europe into the summer season. Okay, so companies are looking to solutions. Sonia was mentioning travel agencies. We work a lot with travel agencies because they use our corporate cards. Okay, that's gonna be a great industry. Let's prospect there now because they're gonna be starting to look for solutions in two months' time when the summer is here. Okay, what's gonna happen there, for example?

SPEAKER_04 44:42

Okay, great. Sonia, what do you think? What's your strategy, prospecting strategy that says this never failed me?

SPEAKER_00 44:48

Data. Data. Do you see what worked? Or you know, this quite the last year and the previous one, and the previous one, and even another one.

SPEAKER_04 44:54

Which one worked the most over the last four four and a half years?

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Like it's uh the product that we sell now, it could be for anyone, literally, right? But when you're selling marketing, uh, for example, when I used to sell marketing, seasonality is very important. So you want to impact the audience before they have to book the trips, for example, right? For a travel agency. It's the same with music, like it has to be before that uh band is launching the single exactly before the tour, so the public is hit up, right? So you need to understand that seasonality of the companies. I do ask the same, like, what do you like? What does your family do? What do you know was your network? What did you saw before? Because maybe you have a networking that you can sometimes they do not know. And I walk them through their own LinkedIn profile. Like, who do you have in common in this company? You studied with this person in the same place, start the conversation with that, you know? So they have a lot of networking and data in their hands, and most of the times they don't know what they do.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Yeah, that's great. Something that is also very good is, for example, to use uh trade fairs. No, what's going on in your city? Where do you live? You live in Valencia, perfect. Which trade fairs are gonna go there? Maybe try to download the exhibitor list, have a look at that, start calling. You're prospecting them. Google Maps. It's a great place.

SPEAKER_04 46:05

You mentioned this strategy several times, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:07

For roundtable events and your day to day, like I used to tell my account executives like, what are you doing this afternoon? Oh, my girlfriend was to go shopping, right? Go shopping, go to Sephora and take pictures of all the products that are imported or are about to be exported, you know, and then you put them in your CRM.

SPEAKER_04 46:22

Thinking outside of the box and just what a list of navigator can give us.

SPEAKER_01 46:26

The other day I was at home. No, the other was I was at home and we blow we bought blueberries, the small tray, plastic tray, and I was like, where do these blueberries do? Not really. And I looked in the back and I said, like, uh, this company from Spain. I immediately went to the CRM. Maybe I'm a little bit crazy, no? I searched for the company and it effectively was a company that was very good, and we called it the next day and we started a sales cycle from Spain.

SPEAKER_04 46:50

Maybe they're bringing that from another currency or paying another currency or using whatever.

SPEAKER_01 46:55

The same in the supermarket. When you buy, for example, fish uh prawns. Salmon from Norway or whatever. Norway, the prawns are bought in Argentina. We recently worked with a company that was buying the the shrimp from Argentina, a producer there. Okay, they bought it in dollars, bought it in euros, there's a trade there. That all comes from very basic stuff. Sales is not super complex. Yeah, but you have to be always active.

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Always active and always open and and and understanding these are the traits of a top seller, basically.

SPEAKER_04 47:23

I don't I don't work in sales from nine to five. No, I work in sales my whole life, right? And that's how you become the better. And and that's why we were saying the other episode that it's um repetition and hardworking beats talent 100%.

SPEAKER_02 47:37

For that reason, this this profession is as well tough because you it's hard to switch off, right? As well, when I I'm selling an online brand protection solution, so it's uh when I see a new brand, I said, Oh my, this this can be fixed. So this is a client of mine, so I can go after them.

SPEAKER_00 47:51

So it's all even for a friend. Like when you see someone or a product that you think, oh my, I have a friend that is working selling this HR solution. And I don't know, I just walk in this company, they interview me, and it was the worst process ever, and I can tell that they can need the help. You're gonna refer that company to your friend who's in sales in another company because you cannot stop selling something.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

Absolutely, that's crazy. So, one thing that I have before jumping into that AI, I promise. It's um we always say we are in the confessionary here, it's confessions of a seller. So we always talk about war stories about sales and and things that happen in your daily basis or with your team. So I'm giving this introduction so you have time to think because this is not planned. But what are those stories, sales stories, war stories that you say, hey, we suffered with this client. Yeah, they they made us go through pain, tears, and blood, and we lost them. And that leads us to understand that this strategy needs to be applied. Or on the other way, uh, not only failure uh wars or stories, but also accomplishments or things that went well.

SPEAKER_02 48:55

Yeah, and the beautiful part, you both uh were sellers by yourself as well, right? You were on the market sell actively selling. So even if it was in the past when you were an active seller, yeah, we love to hear this, this, this was failure and success stories that you can share with us, and what were the the learnings?

SPEAKER_01 49:10

No, I think that one, for example, one failure that I can bring in mind, maybe not a specific example, but got to go to the idea of where you guys are going, is when you try to hurry a sale. I think that that creates uh you need to understand how to read a sale very good. We have many companies that we've wanted to rush a sale because we were in a tough quarter, we want to close the sale however we can. And then the kind of one's like, hey, I don't know if I want this. I'm good with what I have. If you're rushing me, I'm gonna just take a moment to think of it, and then you got just go find him wherever he is. So you have to understand how to read this this product. And then one that we had a win, for example, is we closed some interesting uh football deals um that were very, very good. That uh we had fun, we went to the stadium, we went to see the client as well. It created you create a strong bond with them, you engage with the city. When you open the when we opened this football club, we engage with the city very well. They showed us around. So it was very nice. Like sales also has this, like the human touch to it, but also you have to have the human touch both ways because you you cannot rush a sale or be super intrusive. Many times what happens is that uh uh account savers or salespeople consistently call the same client like 20 times a year. Imagine if you were on the other side, you receive 20 calls from the same person wanting to sell you whatever you want. You're not gonna be watching. That won't happen. Like it's the same when you get the the the spam calls. Yeah, don't contact me. I'm I'm good with what I have. That's that happens a lot. And this with new joiners, that they get a a small lead of a sale, and then they just go for it the whole way. Okay, be patient. The guy needs to understand that, for example, we work we work on a financial on a financial company, we work on Revolute, a financial company. So many times companies already have a financial platform in place. They need to understand the value of what we are trying to do. It's a really thin line, you know, being persistent and annoying.

SPEAKER_04 50:57

And annoying. Yeah. So, what about you, Sonia? What do you think? What are those stories that you can say, hey, this marked me for my whole life?

SPEAKER_00 51:04

I remember when I moved to uh first for another market that it was not Southern Europe or Iberia. I'm very used to working in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, right? Because I've always been working for those markets. The first time is when in teleperformance we started with the UK market for TikTok for business, lockdown, COVID period. So they had to co-call, and the people that we hired were from everywhere, everywhere. Like that, like I think they were two British, and the rest of them, like they didn't know about the British culture. And if you know the British culture, they will tell you yes a hundred times because they're too polite to tell you no. Then you have to read that person aloud. So I thought, what do I do in order to uh teach them how to sell in UKI when I don't know how to sell in the UK? So I did a co-call session and I did co-call in front of them. And I did such a terrible call. It was so, so, so, so bad, like so pathetic that I had to call this person again and tell them, look, this was the worst call I've ever done. Like poor. Like if I were you, I would be hanging out right now. Or I would be laughing at this point, you know, when you call me again. It was he was laughing actually so bad at me recognizing that it was the worst call I've ever done. And I told him, I'm in front of my whole team, they all listened to this call. Can't you believe that it was the worst call I've ever done in my life? But I'm sorry, but I'm Sony, I'm from Spain, and I was playing to him, we are leading this project here, you know. And it was one of the biggest deals that we closed in the UK market. Amazing because he trusted me, because I was real, I was genuine, like literally.

SPEAKER_04 52:28

And you can you can feel it from the other side of the phone, right?

SPEAKER_00 52:31

Absolutely. Like from the product stand of point, I knew everything, I knew how it works, I knew how to bring you a lot of gross profit with these pay-per-click campaigns. I know, right? But why would you trust me? And he trusted me because I was so really I lowered my barrier, and I am telling you, A. I'm super vulnerable with you right now. And I'm telling you, that was ridiculous information. My the team that I just picked up for this project.

SPEAKER_02 52:52

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

So amazing.

SPEAKER_02 52:54

I think this is a perfect, perfect um chump where we can go transition to to AI now because it shows, you know, like the empathy and the the the human touch in sales is so important to show them. Um uh but now with AI, we all know that you know it's it's it's changing the landscape, right? It's changing from SDR to to to the pro prospecting to to uh the closing deals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 53:21

I mean basically companies like JSON SDR, uh uh Reply and and the other companies out there, that is basically they are doing the job that we were used to do. The first thing that we jump into a company. Right now we have a company that is prospecting on our behalf, closing on our behalf, meeting books on our behalf, building lists, so adding on top of what you're saying, basically. And it's like this is changing the whole game. Right now, there is a go-to-market engineers, sales ops, rev ops, these new roles. How do you see the evolution of sales, the evolution of the skills of the new sellers, and how the AI is changing the way we we do things right now?

SPEAKER_01 54:01

I think that artificial intelligence, machine learning, it's the absolute future of every single company out there. You want it or not, it's something that's gonna happen. It's happening in our daily lives as well, in every single aspect of our life as it is. How we evolve on how we take this tool as a way to add value to our job is gonna be a challenge that we're gonna be facing in the next few years. Um, so of course, in sales, it's no no different than any other job. Like we need to understand how these tools can do part of the automatic job or the systematic job that we have to do on a day-to-day basis. So if they they help us do the prospecting, if they help us qualify in the lead correctly, everything is gonna sum up to there. But I think that there is a certain line where on the other end there is a person. And when you are dealing with a person, you have to you have to have this human touch. You can treat you can teach JSON or or whichever artificial intelligence tool that you want how to be as humane as possible. But then when you understand that the other person is on the other side, that they have problems, they have issues, many times that we've called a client, hey, no, today I'm I'm in the hospital, I had this problem, I had this issue, I'm in vacations. These type of things, you you know it as a human towards a human. But of course, artificial intelligence can help us uh do our job better, scale up better, qualify better, uh, do the email, the code outreach as well. But then when you have to develop a sale and then when you have to ask for referrals, which is ultimately the goal of every sale, no, is to sell this and then okay, where where can I scale up from this scale onwards? I think that that's where the human touch gets on. But for the first part, at least in my opinion, we're gonna have to um be using and be more agile with these type of tools. What do you think, Sonny?

SPEAKER_00 55:40

I love AI, like without it, I don't know how to live anymore.

SPEAKER_04 55:42

It was like when Google was like, all day long inside ChatGPT and so it's like my secretary.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

And like it's really honestly. But I think it helps us to have uh better reach and more volume. It will never, never be a substitute of a seller. Ever, ever. Doesn't matter how much it tries because it doesn't have like it's not, or you say in English, picaro, you know, like it is not, it doesn't have the soft skills, it's not cheeky, it doesn't have the human attitude. He cannot AI cannot read me the way I can read a person, right?

SPEAKER_04 56:10

In that case, when you're talking about the negotiation, the human-to-human cell, the closing side, the reading the multi-holder, multi-stakeholder analysis. But when it comes down to the top of the funnel, to the analysis, to the research, to crafting an email, a sequence, to the reading the data, but even it's not changing the way the seller should be taught and learned today?

SPEAKER_00 56:32

I think so. I think it's very useful to extract information, to create a list, to build the cadences of the emails, to call out, which is great. But then you need a person, like, for example, one account executive of mine was emailing non-stop to a huge company that we met in a fair and they were like, Oh, yeah, I love your company, I want your product, but then disappeared, right? So he was insisting non-stop, obsessed with his company. There was one thing that he did that AI would not have done, which is like call the company. The gatekeeper said, No, he's in Paris for this fair. So he was searching where the fair was. He searched the best coffee near that fair. And the subject of the email was the name of a cafe in Paris. Nothing about the company. And then, by the way, you have to go to this place. They have the best coffee, the best da-da-da. So, why did he open the email? Because he thought he had a book in that coffee or whatever. You know, it's like a French name and he thought it was a coffee.

SPEAKER_05 57:22

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 57:23

Exactly. It would never have the human touch that you will have to actually close that deal that was impossible at the beginning. AI is okay if I already want to buy the product, or if I need a product like that, AI is perfect. If you have to convince me and to that point, I need a person.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

Okay. I I I would challenge you guys because I think differently. I think differently as well, in some points. Like, I think that AI can work perfectly to understand the pain points a company has. I think that is fundamental. They can lead you all the way, understand the comparison between what we are selling, what you currently have, understand the pain points, understand how to scale up. Like they can do the whole analysis and they can actually they could actually per it could actually perform the sale itself. The thing is that when you have salespeople, you create these types of things as Sonia was just saying. Like the possibility of meeting the person in real time absolutely creates a bond. Like the amount of I work in in big companies nowadays, like we we did with with multinational companies, with with scale up as well. And when we close a deal, we go and we have a dinner with the clients. We go and meet them, we go and create this bond. That will never be.

SPEAKER_04 58:27

And the upper you go within the type of enterprise is that you close, though, the the more the human touch appears. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 58:36

From the first part, like specifically the outreach perspective, right? With all the data we can we are overloaded with data from all kinds of different sites. This person um liked our triggers, signals, like the person liked um our LinkedIn post, and it visited our website, um, uh, it went to this um event from us, uh joined this webinar, right? I think there is the point where AI can really help us summarize this uh these trigger signals and then use them, summarize it and use them maybe in an outreach. And I think Jason AI, uh the company as well, uh replyO help us with this podcast, sponsors here, um, is doing exactly that, right? They they really um have uh this option to get this information, send it out to the right buyer persona, and book the meeting for you guys, right?

SPEAKER_04 59:24

So that's I think and on top of JSON, I mean, no, sorry, no, no, no, no, no, conclude with the idea. No, what I'm saying is that on top of JSON, and on top of the AI itself, and I'm seeing it every single day, like there is a FOMO around AI. Yeah, every single company and project that I'm working on right now, everyone wants like help me within AI. First question that I ask are you using AI nowadays? What do you think the answer is? The answer is yes. They think they are exactly, but the real answer is no. Yeah. So the first question that I ask is, Are you using AI? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, as you would use Google. Exactly. It's like, okay, can you walk me through how you use it? Yes, I opened, they opened the ChatGPT, share me your screen. They opened Chat GPT, and the first chat that they had there, it's write me an email. It's like, man, this was so miserable, the experience that I had. And that's why maybe AI is not for us at this stage. It's like outdound is not for us. How many times do we hear that? It's because you're doing outdound in the most horrible way. Absolutely. And I want to hear your thoughts, Tommy. But basically, what I'm seeing right now is when we implement a system on top of what you're doing, there is uh an automatically a shift within you as a VDR doing 70% of the time non-revenue activities, you need to go to do revenue activities that is data-driven. It's an analyzing how much time you're spending towards talking to clients or just doing research. Right now, AI will do the research and you will be pre-qualifying or qualifying for the AE, or if you're doing full-side cycle for yourself. The thing is that right now, if I need three SDRs and one AE, I will just need one SDR and maybe non-AE. And that's happening. I'm seeing that in companies, and that's why there is still that gray area where they see AI will replace us, it won't, it will replace some actions, tasks. And I think that this is a game changer like era. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

But what you're selling, you're selling yourself first. And that's something that AI will not do because you know it's a product, it's a bot, right? So sometimes, even if your product is not the cheapest or the best, they will buy your product because you sold yourself. They really like you. Okay, the trust. That's something that AI does not have. This is one of the reasons why we need the human thoughts.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:31

Yeah, the human it's it will be there. Uh, I think that the upper you go in the skills or the negotiation phase or the down to the funnel, let's say, because you have middle of the funnel, bottom of the funnel, the more the safe is the seller, or the safer is the seller, the more you are going towards repetitive activities or tasks, the less we are safe in terms of, hey, if I will be all day long jumping from website to website to understand where are you from, what are you selling, and how do you do it, and where are your competit competitors, be careful because something will replace you sooner than later.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

But I think that is also something that indoubably is the future is you're gonna have a system who can scrap the whole internet, filter a list, send you the list curated with exactly what you want. Exactly. And you're gonna be feeding it consistently. And I think that the most important or one of the most important things about artificial intelligence is machine learning. It's how the system learns and thinks and comprehends what you want to sell. You go feeding it information and inputs consistently over the course of time, and learns more. And it learns more, and it's more capable to give you a direct approach of what you want to see. I think that this is something that will completely change the structure of how we do sales. For example, we we have our guys who scrub the internet manually and they can get to a certain point. If you do it in in an AI system, you have it in in 20 minutes, you will have a curated list, precisely what you need to do. And then you can just do the cold-calling approach. So exactly combining combining the skills.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

If you go to a fair, you can ask your tool, like uh, what does this company do? Who's uh who's here and who's the buyer persona? We'll let you know. You don't have to do it at home prior going to the fair. It's so much work that just goes.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

Well, we have use cases for that specifically, and we are doing that, we are applying those cases. Yeah, they they are fun. I mean, well, you can share the one for the round table event.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

Yeah, so really like just put like okay, I this this is my target person. I have a round table event in Munich happening, um, which are manufacturing companies in a radio of 500 kilometer. Um, find the legal counsel in this in those companies, enrich the data by phone number, email addresses, and draft the first outreach email for me.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:38

You click one click, automatically does it, and you can uh and on top of that, you record your own video or our own video saying, Hey, I will be the hey banana, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:03:47

So you you just say, Hey, uh, hey banana, I hope you go you're coming. Uh lovely, uh it would be great to see you at our next roundtable event. And then instead of banana, they put in the first name of each per person, and you send out a customized video message to over 300 people at the same time. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:06

This kind of stuff. And the conversion rates are insane because sending a 30-second video saying hey banana, but that then it says, Hey Tommy, and the lip sync is there. Hey Tommy, hey Sonia, hey Alan, I will be in Munich as well. I noticed this, this, and that based on the AI research and the latest triggers and the internet and signals. Hey, I have this coffee place nearby. I already booked a table just for two. Why don't we jump in this day at this time? And it's crazy the conversion rates, but you don't have to do that manually never again. But you as a seller, you're putting the brain power behind that. Yeah, of course. Uh there are use cases.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:38

What about do you promote your salespeople or do you do you uh push your salespeople to actively use AI? Or because there are many people like, for example, I speak a lot with lawyers, right? And they say, no, I I don't like that our people use AI, maybe for certain tasks, but we are lawyers, we don't want to have um uh the AI used, right? Um but how do you see that, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

Uh you cannot use AI with sensitive data. So you have to be very careful of what are you adding to the AI. But I do encourage industry. All the account executives in all the companies that have ever worked to automate work. Before AI was Google Sheet, you know, it was like in yeah, in Excel. Automate your tools and even a workflow on Slack. I always find a way to automate to make it faster and get you more volume and more people. I think it's pretty much the same, but without using any sensitive data.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:30

Of course, and specifically us too, the industry that we work on. Yeah, it's pretty much a very banking-related industry. So we do have artificial intelligence. Uh we use it in our in our own sellers. We do not have this thing of the video or itself. Would be interesting to implement it as well. But I think that nowadays, I mean, the growth we've seen with artificial intelligence over the past 10 years, against what we're gonna be seeing in the next 10 years, is unthinkable. Like things that are gonna happen, how things will evolve, maybe you're Even even need to send an email. Maybe there's a different tool out there that you're going to outreach in a different way. Like emails is something that comes from mail, that comes from the old times. Like, okay, we're going to switch maybe the morality of how emails, how people approach the connection between other people. We have social media, LinkedIn, and um with the pandemic as well. New tools appeared as well. So on 10 years, it's not going to be about sending an artificial intelligence email. Maybe it's going to be something completely different. We have to be prepared for these type of things and understanding how things work nowadays will help us deliver better on the future as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:35

Absolutely. And there's always one case that I shared that I mentioned that it's this French company that I'm working with right now. It's an AI company. They sell a like a patent that they have, IP patented for the CNN, BBC, Fox News, even for Netflix and so on, big enterprises. And I've been training their sales team across Europe and the US to perform better and so on. And right now, the second phase of the training is not for the sellers, but for the AI tool that they have that it's called Dust. It's a tool that they use that is a sales coach, basically, that is replacing me. It's crazy because with my knowledge, the resources that we build, the frameworks, methodologies, playbooks, and so on, we embed everything into the sales coach that can do my job 100 million times faster and better without complaining, without getting sick, without asking for a raise and nothing uh similar. And basically, the only thing that I'm doing right now in this uh handover, let's say, is using the insights from the tool and training the team. But basically, the tool is analyzing real time all the calls that they are having with these big companies. And these companies have seven, nine, twelve people involved in every sales cycle within different countries. And in real time, they are giving them the specific feedback, what went well, what needs to be improved with the timestamp, with the action, with the why it happened, how that could impact the pipeline or the deal moving forward. That it took me years for me if I have to review two-hour calls every single time. So it's like, hey, this is they are paying me, so they don't pay me anymore because I'm not going, they are going to replace me.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:15

And this is crazy, and I'm seeing this happening. So should we jump into the fun part right now? That's it. Okay, so we have a game here that it's called Confessions of a Seller, as you can see. So what we have here is um a couple of questions. We have questions, they have different categories. Uh, we are going to ask two or three questions each. The idea is we ask the questions, and you have to say either yes or no answer, and then explain why you picked that answer in 60 seconds, in one minute.

SPEAKER_05 1:08:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:48

It's okay. Let's go. Who wants to begin with? Who wants to start? Sonia? Absolutely. So, Sonia, let's start. I will start. Yeah, I'll go for it. So, Sonia, the first one is role and structure the category. And it says, Would you prefer hiring junior reps or senior experts?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:07

Junior.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:08

Why?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:09

They're coachable. They're not gonna do their old strategy in the previous company, and when they were freelancers, they will learn everything here in-house. How do we do things in this company? How do we sell this product? To who and the methodology is easier to implement there. It depends, right? It depends on your budget. How much do you want to pay? And it depends how much coachable they need to be. Like if it's a very techy company, then you need young people to absorb all the knowledge and to be faster, then I would choose junior.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:35

Okay. For example. Great point. I have a follow-up question, but but I will buy this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:40

You cannot put it. Okay. Okay. Category. Yeah. Um, outbound. Multi-channel strategy mandatory, yes or no?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:48

The training strategy. Mul multi-channel. Multi-channel. Multi-channel. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it is. Why? Because I think that understanding where to be able to sell and understand to have different ways of selling in different industries will also give you different channels where you can where you can target the sales. So it's it's fundamental. It's not only about going on one channel, it's about diversifying your ways, and also it make it makes the job be more engageful, no, be more fun for sellers.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

100%.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:18

Good point. Sonia. Sales. Pipeline problems are usually prospecting problems.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:26

No.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:27

Why?

SPEAKER_00 1:10:28

Pipeline problems are hygiene problems all the way. Like uh most of the times you can prospect the perfect industry, the perfect seasonality, and then never follow up. Do not work with task, do not work with this, do not work with that. Then it becomes a mess. Then you have 500 ops, you don't know the priority of those ops, and that's messier than not knowing how to prospect.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:47

Okay. So basically what you're saying is that not knowing how to deal with your pipeline, it's the problem. Exactly. It's the problem of having worse.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

Both are problems, but it's even worse. And not knowing what to prospect, that is very easy to coach. But if you five 500 ops in your pipe, and then I tell you we're gonna do it this other way, you have to spend the whole week moving the pipeline around and cleaning that before prospecting and selling to someone again, and you lost one week of your quarter, so it's way more catastrophic for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:15

100%. I agree. Let's go. Oh man, Ellen, your handwriting okay, sales. Um we are here for sales, right? Um reps fail because systems or skills.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

Because I think that's a pretty two-way thing. Like their their skills have to be there, but the systems have to accompany their sales as well. Like I feel it's more about maybe the maybe the system that you in place in terms not only of the infrastructure that they have, being CRM, pipeline cleaners or whatever, it's about the system that you in place them. Like how you teach them will also create their their what they're doing. Ultimately, if we hire somebody for the company, it's because you have a certain skill set that they already uh deployed it within the the interview. So if you give them a good structure, you're gonna enhance these these skills. The skills are in in sales, um, you you can you can learn them as well. But if you have a good structure that around these skills, you're gonna be much better, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:18

It's like a building, right? You have to have the right fundamentals uh right structure to build on that, and uh based on that you have the skill.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:24

Should we ask two more? Yeah, let's go. Well done. Why not?

unknown 1:12:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:28

And then you can read it beforehand just in case because of my hand writing. So, okay, compensation. Uh, this is an easy one, I guess. Team or individual bonuses?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:38

Individual bonuses.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:40

Why?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:40

All the way. Uh, I think first you need to be an individual contributor and read your individual quota before thinking ahead of being promoted, progress, becoming a manager, or going somewhere else. So I think if you're a junior, you need an individual quota and an individual commission. Then when you become more senior and you want to do something else and you will need a team one, this is when you become a manager. I have a team quota because I want to deal with the team, right? If I want to be an individual contributor, then I need my individual commissions.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:07

Okay. So money drives behavior at some point.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:09

Yeah, I think so.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:10

Okay. Cool. Good one.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:12

Um, roles and um orchestructure higher for attitude or for track records?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:19

I think it's about attitude. I mean, you are as good as your last quarter, in my opinion. That's amazing. Can you repeat that? You are as good as your last quarter.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:30

We will short clip this and we will put it all over the internet. I will be famous for this quote.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:35

No, I think that it's it's really like that. Like um, what I was saying before, like the best sellers feel empowered because they they they've performed well. Okay, that's fantastic. Now they need to learn how to mitigate with with maybe not being super good performers. So it's always about how they portray themselves, and it's about the the the attitude and their efforts towards towards what they do, at least.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:58

100%. Cool. Do you want to make a quick recap before we jump into the closing?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:03

Um, yeah, quite a lot of uh information we had uh discussed with you guys, but I think really, really interesting for our audience. So we really went from from development of of people from KPIs to AI coaching. Um so I think that we we covered quite a lot, which um it's really interesting because you guys are in the industry, you are actively doing it, you in the trenches. Yeah, you're in the trenches, so you you were selling by yourself. So I love to talk to those kind of people who really can uh walk the talk or talk the walk. I don't know how uh the way uh doing the real the real X and then give us some confessions, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

Because this is all about um absolutely so to conclude, if you are up to this point, so don't forget to subscribe to the channel, hit that bell. Uh, we are going to share a lot of new insights in the next episodes as well. But before we go away, thanks again to reply.io. Thanks again to Jason and the AISDR that is helping us and making this possible as well. So thank you for joining this crazy adventure with us. Uh, if you don't know or if you didn't test it yet, all the information in the description, check it out. And if you have any question, contact Kevin on LinkedIn, myself. Uh, you have the details as well. And yeah, see you in the next one. Thanks. Thank you guys. Thank you for joining us.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:28

Thank you for having us. That was a pleasure. It was very fun. I had a blast.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:31

That was amazing.