Start Paying Customers to Join Your Sales Calls

WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.840 --> 00:00:09.930 Welcome back to a solo episode of B two B Growth Haven't done one of these in a 2 00:00:09.930 --> 00:00:13.990 while, but it is just me behind the mic today. My name is James Carberry and 3 00:00:13.990 --> 00:00:17.830 the founder of Soup, Fish Media and one of the co host of this show. And I am 4 00:00:17.830 --> 00:00:22.190 going to be talking about something that I learned from Chris Walker and 5 00:00:22.190 --> 00:00:27.330 Kevin Dorsey, known as K D. If you follow both of those guys on linked in, 6 00:00:27.330 --> 00:00:31.570 you know that they are incredible content creators. I was listening to 7 00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:36.570 Episode 69 of The State of Demand Jin podcast Chris Walkers podcast the other 8 00:00:36.570 --> 00:00:43.000 day, and Chris was talking to Kevin about this concept of paying your 9 00:00:43.000 --> 00:00:47.200 customers. Actually, instead of, you know, instead of spending $200,000 on a 10 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:52.690 trade show booth at Dream Force, instead allocating those dollars to 11 00:00:52.700 --> 00:00:58.310 paying your customers to get on sales calls in the early part of the sales 12 00:00:58.310 --> 00:01:02.260 process. And I thought this idea was fascinating. I don't think I've ever 13 00:01:02.260 --> 00:01:06.640 heard anybody talk about this, and they had a incredible conversation about it. 14 00:01:06.640 --> 00:01:10.730 One of Kris's some of Christmas pushback on this was Well, you know 15 00:01:10.730 --> 00:01:14.540 Kevin. Wouldn't that be seen as a conflict of interest? If you're paying 16 00:01:14.550 --> 00:01:18.830 your customer to be on the sales call, obviously they're going to be 17 00:01:18.830 --> 00:01:24.540 incentivized to talk well of your product. And Kevin was like, Yeah, 18 00:01:24.540 --> 00:01:28.840 you're totally right. But is it a bigger conflict of interest than the 19 00:01:28.840 --> 00:01:34.800 sales rep who is selling this product whose comped 70 probably 70% of their 20 00:01:34.800 --> 00:01:42.060 entire pay structure is on commissioned deals? So 70% of their paycheck is 21 00:01:42.060 --> 00:01:47.230 coming from whether you say yes or no to this deal and how is that not a 22 00:01:47.230 --> 00:01:51.030 conflict of interest? And I thought, Well, that's a really good point If 23 00:01:51.030 --> 00:01:55.880 we're OK talking to a sales rep who's clearly got an incentive to sell you 24 00:01:55.880 --> 00:02:00.160 the product and talk about the great things about this product, why would 25 00:02:00.160 --> 00:02:04.270 paying your customer be any different? And one of the things that I was 26 00:02:04.270 --> 00:02:08.199 thinking about as I listen to this episode was like if we were to go to 27 00:02:08.199 --> 00:02:12.910 some of our customers, they're mostly B two B SAS companies, and we were to say, 28 00:02:12.910 --> 00:02:18.130 Hey, when we picked five or six of them and we said, Hey, would you commit Thio 29 00:02:18.140 --> 00:02:21.810 for 1000 bucks a month, or maybe a couple grand a month. Would you commit 30 00:02:21.810 --> 00:02:26.770 to being on five or 10 of our sales calls every month? Well, they now have 31 00:02:26.770 --> 00:02:31.650 to go back to their companies and basically justify five or 10 hours a 32 00:02:31.650 --> 00:02:36.550 month off their time. I think our sales calls are actually 30 minutes. So 33 00:02:36.550 --> 00:02:40.860 however, the math works out for you, but they would have to go back to their 34 00:02:40.860 --> 00:02:46.810 bosses or justified to themselves, spending that amount of time being on 35 00:02:46.810 --> 00:02:52.670 sales calls for us. And so instead of actually paying them, I want because 36 00:02:52.670 --> 00:02:55.810 we're a service provider. I think you could still do this if your if your 37 00:02:55.810 --> 00:03:02.400 product company. But what if, instead of us paying them cash to get on our 38 00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:06.360 sales calls and answer questions from customers, give a real life look at 39 00:03:06.360 --> 00:03:10.350 what it's like to work with our team? What if, instead we said, Hey, we'll 40 00:03:10.350 --> 00:03:14.730 produce some additional content for you every month. Maybe it's a few extra 41 00:03:14.730 --> 00:03:19.240 micro videos or we'll do some more episodes for your show. There's a 42 00:03:19.240 --> 00:03:24.440 variety of different things that we could dio Thio as added services in 43 00:03:24.440 --> 00:03:30.370 order Thio for them to be able to justify to their boss. Hey, this is why 44 00:03:30.370 --> 00:03:35.440 I'm taking a few hours out of my month to sit on sales calls for this vendor 45 00:03:35.450 --> 00:03:39.270 because we're getting value. The business is getting value in exchange 46 00:03:39.270 --> 00:03:44.380 for the time that I'm spending on these sales calls. If you're getting value 47 00:03:44.380 --> 00:03:48.130 from this podcast, you are absolutely going toe love our weekly newsletter 48 00:03:48.130 --> 00:03:52.540 and each email I share something that you can do toe love your team well, toe, 49 00:03:52.540 --> 00:03:56.900 hone your craft, the craft of marketing and to grow your leadership. Plus, 50 00:03:56.900 --> 00:04:00.070 there's a super funny video at the top of the landing page whenever you go to 51 00:04:00.070 --> 00:04:03.270 sign up for the newsletter. So go to sweet Fish media dot com slash 52 00:04:03.270 --> 00:04:09.000 newsletter and sign up today s So if you're a product, maybe you could 53 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:13.270 unlock some enterprise features so or unlocks, um, you know, whatever 54 00:04:13.270 --> 00:04:16.649 additional features, you could maybe add some services on there if that's a 55 00:04:16.649 --> 00:04:20.640 part of your business model. But I think you could get creative either in 56 00:04:20.649 --> 00:04:24.470 in paying your customers just outright, paying them directly. If that's 57 00:04:24.470 --> 00:04:28.060 something they're willing to do and and maybe they say, Hey, I'm my days are 58 00:04:28.060 --> 00:04:32.910 pretty flexible. I can make up that time for my day job, you know, on the 59 00:04:32.910 --> 00:04:36.720 weekends Or, you know, in the evenings or early mornings. So maybe you can 60 00:04:36.720 --> 00:04:40.210 actually pay your customers directly. But as I was thinking through it, I was 61 00:04:40.210 --> 00:04:42.890 like, Man, there could be another way to do it. Josh from our team is 62 00:04:42.890 --> 00:04:46.920 actually what? Who brought that to my attention? He said, What if we just 63 00:04:46.930 --> 00:04:51.340 gave them additional services instead of paying them directly? And I thought 64 00:04:51.340 --> 00:04:54.860 that could That could really, really work. So this concept of of 65 00:04:54.860 --> 00:04:59.450 compensating your customers to sit on sales calls at the beginning of the 66 00:04:59.450 --> 00:05:05.780 sale cycle, I think it's so smart and could really be it could really move 67 00:05:05.780 --> 00:05:09.460 the needle for you. And so I think trying it for three months and just 68 00:05:09.460 --> 00:05:14.350 seeing, like, OK, what what is the conversion from our first sales call 69 00:05:14.640 --> 00:05:18.950 into closed one business? What is that current percentage right now? What we 70 00:05:18.950 --> 00:05:23.630 currently converting at now and start doing this get five or six customers to 71 00:05:23.630 --> 00:05:27.310 jump in on sales calls and then measured over the next 90 days and see 72 00:05:27.310 --> 00:05:32.380 like, Hey, we were converting 10% of our initial sales calls into new 73 00:05:32.380 --> 00:05:37.720 business. Now we're converting 15%. So now you've got we're converting the 74 00:05:37.720 --> 00:05:41.620 same amount, right? And so I think it's definitely something worth testing 75 00:05:41.630 --> 00:05:48.240 worth trying, I think, waiting for your prospective customer to ask for a 76 00:05:48.240 --> 00:05:52.780 reference at the end of your sale cycle. Man, I just think that we could get a 77 00:05:52.780 --> 00:05:58.060 lot more people engaged and interested in working with us if instead of 78 00:05:58.060 --> 00:06:02.150 waiting for them to ask for a reference, we actually put that reference. We 79 00:06:02.150 --> 00:06:06.870 proactively put a customer onto you know, the first or second sales call. I 80 00:06:06.870 --> 00:06:10.310 don't know what your sales process looks like, but at the front end of the 81 00:06:10.310 --> 00:06:14.010 sales process and allowed that perspective customer toe ask actually 82 00:06:14.010 --> 00:06:18.280 from Ask our existing customers. What's it like to work with this company, 83 00:06:18.290 --> 00:06:23.650 where you getting the most value from their service or from their product and 84 00:06:23.660 --> 00:06:29.060 give your customer the freedom to speak freely? I think if they don't have you 85 00:06:29.060 --> 00:06:32.820 know 100% perfect things to say about the product, I think that could 86 00:06:32.820 --> 00:06:36.700 actually go a long way and actually selling your product or service because 87 00:06:36.700 --> 00:06:40.560 they feel like they're getting an authentic representation of reality. 88 00:06:40.560 --> 00:06:44.680 And they're not just, you know, being sold on Lee the great stuff. So e think, 89 00:06:44.680 --> 00:06:49.690 giving your customers the freedom to speak freely, even if that doesn't mean, 90 00:06:49.700 --> 00:06:55.790 you know, ah, glowing 5.5 star review on every on every single component of 91 00:06:55.790 --> 00:07:00.360 your product or service as we found from lots of research done on this, 92 00:07:00.360 --> 00:07:04.220 people don't actually trust the five star review as much as they trust the 93 00:07:04.220 --> 00:07:08.750 4.5 star review. And so I think, let your customers speak freely. Put them 94 00:07:08.750 --> 00:07:13.840 at the front end of your sales process and measure it. See if this works. It's 95 00:07:13.840 --> 00:07:17.320 something we're talking about it sweet fish and will likely start implementing 96 00:07:17.330 --> 00:07:21.050 in the next couple months. I'm really excited about it, so I hope this was 97 00:07:21.050 --> 00:07:25.890 helpful for you. If you have been loving this show and you've not already 98 00:07:25.890 --> 00:07:31.740 left a rating on apple podcasts, it would bless my soul if you went on 99 00:07:31.740 --> 00:07:35.060 ahead and did that just pop over toe apple podcast, which you're already 100 00:07:35.060 --> 00:07:39.270 there. Obviously, if you're listening to this and just find the show. Search 101 00:07:39.270 --> 00:07:43.580 me to be growth, and whenever you scroll down, you'll see a section for 102 00:07:43.580 --> 00:07:47.580 ratings and reviews. I don't really care much about reviews. Reviews don't 103 00:07:47.580 --> 00:07:50.950 help us a whole lot in the apple podcasts ecosystem. From what I 104 00:07:50.950 --> 00:07:55.750 understand, just tap the number of stars that you think the show deserves. 105 00:07:55.760 --> 00:08:00.090 It's super quick, take you less than three seconds and those ratings really, 106 00:08:00.090 --> 00:08:04.660 really help us out a lot. Thanks a lot. Hey, everybody, Logan with sweet fish 107 00:08:04.660 --> 00:08:08.620 here, if you're a regular listener of B two b growth, you know that I'm one of 108 00:08:08.620 --> 00:08:12.670 the co host of the show, but you may not know that I also head up the sales 109 00:08:12.670 --> 00:08:16.870 team here. A sweet fish. So for those of you in sales or sales office, I 110 00:08:16.870 --> 00:08:20.350 wanted to take a second to share something that's made us insanely more 111 00:08:20.350 --> 00:08:24.650 efficient. Lately, our team has been using lead like for the past few months, 112 00:08:24.740 --> 00:08:29.230 and what used to take us four hours gathering Contact data now takes us on 113 00:08:29.230 --> 00:08:34.159 Lee one where 75% more efficient were able to move faster with outbound 114 00:08:34.159 --> 00:08:38.630 prospecting and organizing our campaigns is so much easier than before. 115 00:08:38.640 --> 00:08:42.789 I'd highly suggest you guys check out lead I Q. As well. You can check them 116 00:08:42.789 --> 00:08:52.010 out at lead. I q dot com That's l e a d e que dot com Gary V says it all the 117 00:08:52.010 --> 00:08:56.840 time, and we agree. Every company should think of themselves as a media 118 00:08:56.840 --> 00:09:02.510 company first, then whatever it is they actually do if you know this is true. 119 00:09:02.510 --> 00:09:06.320 But your team has already maxed out and you can't produce any more content in 120 00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:10.660 house. We can help. We produce podcast for some of the most innovative BB 121 00:09:10.660 --> 00:09:14.680 brands in the world, and we also help them turn the content from the podcast 122 00:09:14.680 --> 00:09:18.920 in the block posts, micro videos and slide decks that work really well on 123 00:09:18.920 --> 00:09:22.640 LinkedIn. If you wanna learn more, go to sweet Fish media dot com slash 124 00:09:22.640 --> 00:09:27.650 launch or email Logan at sweet Fish media dot com.