Chris Battis: On this episode of Intent Topics, we’re going to talk about good old-fashioned sales hustle. I’m Chris Battis, and this is Logan Kelly, and today we’ll be talking about what sales hustle looks like in 2019, the mindset required for reps to hit their goals, and actionable tactics to help yourself and your team sell.
Chris Battis: Why is human hustle still so important even though we have all these tools, right? We have marketing automation tools. We have data and intelligence. We have bots and email sequences and calendar booking tools. Why does it all come down to human hustle? Logan, what’s your take on all this? What’s human hustle look like to you?
Logan Kelly: Well, Chris, there are so many pieces of software and solutions that make it so easy to not actually accomplish anything but look like it. It’s a waste of the rep’s time. It’s a waste of the company’s money, and really, focus and hustle are what are going to get us over the line, so we have things like in emails, these calendar booking tools, so instead of asking for a meeting, we’re putting a calendar booking tool in our emails.
Logan Kelly: And there’s this debate of whether you ask for the meeting or not, whether you provide times in the email or not, “Does Tuesday at 10 work best for you?” or “I look forward to following up with you,” but I can tell you that there’s nothing less personal than saying, “Go into my calendar and find a time.” Now, I know that there’s a time and a place, and I know that there’s specific maybe verticals or companies that that works for them or people that that works for depending on the relationship and the context, but that’s just one example of things that we’re really relying on technology where we should be trying to build connections and trying to build relationships with our prospects.
Chris Battis: Totally. I got a buddy that owns a business, and he hired a sales development guy, and this guy’s not closing any deals. And he’s looking over his shoulder, and he’s reading emails, and this guy would get a really warm lead and just say, “All right, just book your meeting with me when you’re ready, and we’ll chat.” What are you doing?
Logan Kelly: Right, and so what’s happened is with all this technology and all this automation, there’s a lot of really good sales people out here, and there’s a lot of really good sales leaders and all that kind of stuff, so I don’t want to come across as disparaging at all, but what I’ll say is that what I’m seeing come into my own inbox, right, in the various companies I’ve been involved with, it’s like, who put thought into this, and who really tried to connect with me?
Chris Battis: Did you even research who I am or what we’re doing here, right?
Logan Kelly: Exactly, and then I get these calls that are the dialing software, right? We can’t even hustle hard enough that 10 digits is too much work. Are you kidding me? That’s where I think we need to get reconnected with the sales and the art of sales and the science of sales, and let’s get re-engaged with our work, and we’re not shoveling manure, but there is work to be done here, and I feel like people are not doing it. And that’s really what I want to see. And here at Union, if we add a target to one of our client’s lists, you better believe we’re researching that, we’re figuring out what the role is, why that contact is on the list and who they are and a LinkedIn profile look, and-
Chris Battis: You do your homework.
Logan Kelly: It’s not hard work. You got to do your homework. That’s hustle to me.
Chris Battis: And to be fair though, right, there’s still tools to help you with that research, but you still need to do it, right? You still need to find the background on who you’re talking to, and you make sure that you’re going into that conversation with confidence and the mindset this is going to be successful, right? And so I think human hustle has been augmented by the tools. The tools allow us to prioritize our time, and that allows for sales reps to go into conversations with an abundance mindset, right?
Logan Kelly: Right, right, and to sort of close this point off, I was recently looking for software, and I got put into an automated sequence or cadence or whatever you want to talk about when I had already had a conversation with whatever the role’s name was. They could close the deal, their commission was if they write a contract, then they get paid, and I was in an automated sequence. What?
Chris Battis: That’s so annoying.
Logan Kelly: That’s crazy.
Chris Battis: That same company still has me in a sequence, and we’re paying them. I know what you’re talking about. It’s like I want to write back and be like, “Hey, stop emailing me because we’re paying you. Let it go.” You see that all the time, but actually, to be fair, to be fair, I’ve seen a handful of pretty well done sales emails to my inbox lately, right? There’s been a few, and I didn’t actually need it, right? But they were damn close. If I was like, “Wow, if I didn’t already have that service or software or whatever, I’d read this email.” Well done. They figured out. They knew that I was a good fit for what they were selling, and they crafted an email that was pretty personalized, and it wasn’t selling me. Just like, “Here, here’s this thing,” right? And it was well done.
Chris Battis: It was well-researched. The content was just right, and that’s what we’re striving to do daily, right?
Logan Kelly: Absolutely. My favorite thing is when some of our clients, they focus on the sales organization within large companies, and you’ll see an email come back, and it’s like, “Hey man, we’re not interested right now, but thanks for the email,” or whatever, and that’s almost like a code of honor, that if somebody sent an email into my inbox that it looks like you cared enough to really do that work, and you’re a hustler, I’m going to send an email back and just be like, “Thanks, man. Not interested, but keep doing what you’re doing because it’s going to work.”
Chris Battis: Well, that’s kind of like, this came up earlier, no means yes, but now all of a sudden, you’re having a conversation with this person when … I was driving today, and I was like, “The ultimate no is no response.”
Logan Kelly: Exactly.
Chris Battis: But a well-written email where somebody takes the time to write back like, “Hey, no thanks, not right now,” I would say it’s mildly warmed up, or it’s like an ice cube that’s melted.
Logan Kelly: Right. Right. It’s at least an opportunity to plant one more seed before you exit the conversation for whatever, a couple of weeks or a month, or you wait till these great tools, you see that they’re back on your website, or within 10 data, they’re surging again, and that’s wonderful, so I think you only get that with hustle, and that’s what we’re striving for. We’re obviously striving to sell, but we want to approach our prospects at the level that they understand that they are not on a thousand target email blast, and that’s really what we’re striving for here.
Chris Battis: On the hustle tip, right, I had a sales manager tell me when I was at HubSpot, he was like, “If I can get a rep to do the exact set of data activities every day, they will absolutely hit their number every time.” And I was like, “Really? You know the exact activities, emails, to discovery calls, to demos?” And he was like, “Absolutely. It’s just a numbers game.” And that’s just human hustle, right? You have to do the things, right, and stay disciplined, and I think that’s just a huge part, right?
Chris Battis: And then if you’re really good at that discipline, and you add in the research and all these things that can make you go into conversations more just ready for more quality conversations, you’re going to win even more.
Logan Kelly: Sure.
Chris Battis: And another rep I was talking to kept getting [inaudible 00:09:02] and stuff by being on a leader board every month, and I was like, “What’s the trick, man?” He was like, “I don’t even look at my number. I just do the things, and I just don’t look at how I’m tracking any of my MMR goals. I just do the things, and I win these awards, and I’m not even looking at it,” and that just goes to show that the hustle’s the hustle, right? There’s nothing more to it. There’s no gaming it. You got to do the things, right?
Logan Kelly: Yeah, and that’s where there’s a big pieces of this that I will disagree with, right? I think you can be good just by doing the things that you’re supposed to do, right? If you make 100 phone calls in a day, right, unless you suck, right, you’re going to get something, right? And so I think it’s like I always say, if you’ve got no tools in your toolbox, right, beat the nail in with your toolbox, right?
Logan Kelly: And I think that that’s awesome, but I think there’s this whole topic around mindset that allows the person who’s going to make 100 phone calls, you get one success off of 100, if you have the right mindset, and I think that’s really what as sales leaders and as managers and really even as reps to each other, this is really what we should be working to help people to strive towards, and I think right now with the amount of data that’s available to us and the amount of information that’s constantly coming at us, I think the biggest challenge but the biggest opportunity is really honing in on what the abundance mindset that’s been so powerful. It’s been so powerful for me. It’s been so powerful for a lot of the people that I’ve been selling with, and-
Chris Battis: What’s the abundance mindset? Back up. What is this? Come on, tell me.
Logan Kelly: Sure. Sure. When you wake up in the morning, right, not every morning you wake up feeling perfect, right? If somebody says to me that they wake up every morning bouncing out of bed with all the energy in the world, right, give me some of what you’re taking, right?
Chris Battis: Back off the CBD, bro.
Logan Kelly: But the difference is when you wake up and you talk yourself into the fact that you’re going to have a good day, that’s the beginning of the abundance mindset, and so I think if we bring that into what does that mean for sales, it’s like if I’m looking at a target company on my list, the abundance mindset is proving to myself that that company is worth my time, right? Not every company at face value is exciting or sexy or you think that it’s a good fit, right? But I was doing research on a target with one of our reps, and it was like, “Ah, that’s going to take some work,” right?
Logan Kelly: But then we dig into it for 45 seconds, and all of a sudden, they’re award-winning. They’re top of their field, a field that the normal person doesn’t care about, but that’s valuable, right? Now I get to have a conversation with somebody who’s big time in their field. I mean, that’s the stuff that as sales people, if every single time you were getting yourself excited to make that phone call, to interact with that organization or that target or that role, that’s some powerful stuff.
Chris Battis: And you have the information available to you to build that confidence, right? Here I go with the fishing analogy, right? It’s like if I’m fishing, say I’m out, I’m looking for tuna fish or something, and if I don’t believe in a spot where I am, I just can’t get into it. And I’ll have buddies make fun of me for this. They’ll be like, “Chill, patience.” And I’m like, “No, this is not it. This is not working. I’m not seeing anything that’s telling me that this is going to work. I’m not seeing birds. I’m not seeing any life on my screen. I don’t feel it,” so I leave, right? And I think it’s the same thing with sales, right?
Chris Battis: If you go into a conversation, and you have some great activity leading in the call, you have a bunch of intelligence maybe on what the prospect’s needs are, and you’re confident in your product and your ability to convey how you solve their problems, you’re going to go in jacked. You’re going to be excited for that call. You just got to have the right mindset, right? Whereas if you doubt it, right … And so think about our clients. When we pass off a lead to a client, we want them to be jacked to pick up the phone, right?
Logan Kelly: Exactly.
Chris Battis: And just be like, “I can nail this. This is the [inaudible 00:13:59] I need. This is on,” right?
Logan Kelly: Right. Exactly. Exactly, and I think that that’s an organization thing, right? What’s happening at every level of the company from the VP of sales down to the admin doing research for the BDRs, right, everybody should be approaching the targets, proving to themselves that this is what I should be doing because the time investment feels so big to make a call or send an email, but dude, we got 24 hours in the day, right? And what’s five minutes to take the extra time to really prove to yourself that I am in the right place, this is on my list for the right reason?
Logan Kelly: And two weeks later, you might say to yourself, “This needs to come off. I’m not getting anywhere,” but it’s okay. That’s fine.
Chris Battis: Well, and it comes down to prioritization, right? There’s no shortage of people to call, right? But if you only have so much time, like that sales manager [inaudible 00:15:09], you got to hit those activities, but you really want to use them wisely, right?
Logan Kelly: Exactly. Exactly.
Chris Battis: You want to use like they’re drink tickets at an open bar or something. You don’t want to just blow them.
Logan Kelly: Exactly. Exactly. And I think that’s where spending that time I think and using it wisely kind of is in the second part of the mindset that’s really important here when it comes to hustle, which is specificity. There’s a lot of companies out there that are really, really good at doing something, and it’s the job of the people on the factory lines or the developers or whatever they’re doing, digging ditches, [crosstalk 00:15:58] it’s their job to be good at developing or to be delivering that product, right?
Chris Battis: Sure.
Logan Kelly: But it’s the sales people’s job to translate that into the customer’s or their target prospect’s mind-
Chris Battis: Right-
Logan Kelly: And I think that … Go ahead.
Chris Battis: No, that takes a level of curiosity, right?
Logan Kelly: Right.
Chris Battis: They must be curious to try to unpack that so that they can be specific and personal with their content, right?
Logan Kelly: Exactly. Exactly.
Chris Battis: So that they go in with the right mindset. Totally.
Logan Kelly: Right, and this seems like something that should be easy, right? It should be super easy to think, “Oh, I got to spend time to really hone my value proposition to this specific vertical compared to that vertical, and if they have this problem, how can I solve it?” And I’m not talking about our flux capacitor spins at 5017 RPMs where my competitor … Back from the car business, they call it selling the sizzle, not the steak, but what is that sizzle? And if reps and whole organizations can really spend time focusing on what is that value proposition to the end user, the prospect, the customer, whatever the terminology is?
Logan Kelly: And I think people forget that that’s hustle, right? What are you doing to hone that after five o’clock, right? And that’s why I spend a lot of time on the weekends, after hours thinking about Union and thinking about our clients, and what is it that I could say, or what is it that I could do to figure out how to relate this just a little bit better to that micro-problem, that micro-instance, because that’s when you generate activity and sales.
Chris Battis: And you have to be passionate about understanding the business, and if you don’t have that, this research, I mean, it will not spark your curiosity, right? And think of all the clients you’ve had to get deep into understanding their business. We almost naively went into some clients just being like, “This will be easy to sell to,” and then you’re like, “Wow, we really have to understand the needs here to do that.” You have to really understand the business, and that part’s been fun for me. I don’t know about you.
Logan Kelly: It’s amazing how if you push yourself to learn a little bit more and a little bit more and a little bit more, all of a sudden, you can start to relate, so then you can really we talk about emotional intelligence and selling and all that kind of stuff. Dude, that doesn’t matter if you’re not really figuring out yourself, your company, right? And then it’s almost like figure out what you can do and then match that, right? And it’s kind of like if you don’t know what you’re going to be able to do once you figure out what the problem is, it’s impossible.
Chris Battis: Kind of wrapping up, what are some tactics you would recommend to someone listening to put some of these ideas into action this week?
Logan Kelly: When we talk about abundance, right, I think my favorite thing is there’s three tabs on my computer at all times when I’m working with the reps. We’re talking Owler, LinkedIn, and just a browser for the company’s website, right? And if we have those three tabs up, we can get just about all the information we need. If you’re not doing that research, right, this is like a three legged stool, right? You’re bound to fail because the information that you need to get excited about is always on the platform that you’re not looking at, right?
Chris Battis: Real quick, real quick before you go on, tell everyone Owler is just in case they don’t know.
Logan Kelly: Oh, go to Owler dot com. It compiles an enormous amount of just amazing data on every company, and every company doesn’t have perfect coverage, but just little pieces, like, “Oh, that company seemed small because their website sucks, but they do 50 million dollars a year,” right?
Chris Battis: They just got a huge round of funding. Totally.
Logan Kelly: Cool. I’m in. I’ll call them, right? And if you don’t know that information, you’re going to be waving to the dude in his brand new car that sold that big deal to them, and so I think that that’s the piece. That’s the piece.
Chris Battis: And that’s one of the arrows in your quiver to help you obtain the abundance mindset going into that conversation, right?
Logan Kelly: Right. Right. Exactly. Exactly.
Chris Battis: And also, the tools we use have Owler built in, right? When you’re looking at a contact, you have all that information right away, right?
Logan Kelly: Right. Right. Exactly, and then when we talk about specificity, how can we really build specificity? I think the amount of information and content that has already been written about the solution that your company is solving, right, most people don’t have an entirely unique product. They might have a unique way of spinning that product, but everybody is a different color or a different shade of the same color if you’re in an industry or a vertical, so there’s a lot of content, and there’s a lot of people who have been very clever in how they spin it and how they look at it.
Logan Kelly: And so I think it’s just a matter of thinking and researching and trying to digest as much different content as you can without it being noise, right? You have original thoughts, but enrich your thought process with as much information as you can contain, and then go for a walk, right? And think about it, and I think that’s really where if you spend that time to digest it and think about it, you’ll start to win.
Chris Battis: Nice. Nice. Cool. Well, this wraps up today’s episode of Intent Topics. I’m Chris Battis.
Logan Kelly: I’m Logan Kelly, and I appreciate you guys listening to my rants. Please give us a five star on whatever podcast app you’re using. We appreciate you joining us. Have a great day everybody.
Chris Battis: Take care.
