Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Enabling Customers to Sell for You w/Mark Whitesell
29 Plays1 month ago
In this episode, Brian Dietmeyer talks to Mark Whitesell about the increasingly relevant topic of enabling customers to sell for you. With over 30 years of experience in sales, sales engineering, and sales enablement, Mark shares his insights on how sales reps can empower customers to advocate for their proposals internally, especially in today's resource-constrained environments. This discussion is crucial for sales professionals looking to adapt and succeed in the modern sales landscape by leveraging customer relationships as a sales channel.
Timestamps:
- 00:01 Introduction to Mark Whitesell and the topic of customer enablement in sales.
- 00:36 Mark emphasizes the importance of understanding customer's pre-existing knowledge and constraints.
- 02:04 Discussion on the evolving role of CFOs in the buying process.
- 03:12 Challenges sales reps face in adapting to a model where they enable customers to sell internally.
- 06:11 Mark introduces Salio, a tool that helps customers demonstrate products.
- 09:07 The role of sales reps as trusted advisors and the importance of relationship-building.
- 11:45 Challenges in developing customer readiness and the need for sales enablement.
- 16:03 The strategic advantage of providing customers with decision-making tools.
- 19:03 Final thoughts on shifting sales strategies towards customer enablement and development.
Recommended
Transcript
Intro
Introduction to Close Mode with Brian Deitmeyer
00:00:05
Brian
Welcome to another edition of Close Mode, the enterprise sales show. I'm Brian Deitmeyer, CEO of Close Strong. the home of precision guided selling.
Meet Mark Whitel: Sales Expert
00:00:14
Brian
And today i'm I'm really fortunate to be here with Mark Whitel. And Mark has got about 30 years of experiences as I calculated it in, in sales, sales, engineering ops, uh, sales enablement, uh, has, uh, has been an SVP with Savient as well as roles with Okta and RSA security. Lots of deep background. Mark, welcome to the show.
00:00:38
Mark Whitesell
Thank you.
Customer Enablement: A New Sales Trend
00:00:39
Brian
So we, uh, as you and I were chatting last week, you brought up something that we haven't talked about on the show, but I, I, I know some other consultants who are big on this topic and it's enabling customers to sell for you. Right. And I think that the issue has kind of been around for awhile, but it's, I feel like it's, it's more, I feel like it's more relevant today. Do you feel like it's, it's more relevant in today's market to enable those folks to kind of bring your proposal forward for you?
Informed Customers and the Need for Efficiency
00:01:07
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, you know, it's a great question, a great topic that we kind of talked about a little bit because when I think about a customer nowadays, you know, the customers are coming to us and they've already done a lot of their research.
00:01:08
Brian
yes
00:01:19
Mark Whitesell
You know, they're not coming coming to us and knowing nothing about the company or what the products do or things like that. They already have a pretty good idea. And I think there's you know's a couple of different things. One, they they've already done their research, but two, they they're they're having to do more with less.
00:01:33
Brian
yeah
00:01:34
Mark Whitesell
And I think that's something that that is is it ah ah you know a trend that's not going to go in a different direction. but We're not going to start hiring more people for those roles. So I think when you start looking at that and you say, all right, i've got ah if I'm looking at it from the buyer point of view, I'm trying to figure out, hey, i i've I want to get as much done as I can.
00:01:54
Mark Whitesell
I don't have a lot of time to work with it, and I'm looking for sales reps to give me the information that I need to be able to put together yeah things like a business value analysis or of things like what is this like my ROI going to look like?
00:01:56
Brian
Yeah.
00:02:07
Mark Whitesell
How is this software actually going to help
The Rising Role of CFOs in Purchasing Decisions
00:02:09
Mark Whitesell
me? And then the third thing that I that i look at that I've seen in kind of trends now is the CFOs are getting a lot more involved than they used to be. It used to be you'd see a CFO and they would kind of rubber stamp stuff and things like that.
00:02:18
Brian
Yeah.
00:02:22
Mark Whitesell
You're seeing the CFOs that are actually asking questions and they're saying things like, hey, I don't even want to talk to you unless you're bringing me the ah ROI of this product. like How is this actually going to help the business? Because they have to then you either explain to somebody else or put it in their cost justification.
00:02:37
Mark Whitesell
Why exactly is this product going to help us? so When I look at it from those those three different points of view, you really come to a point where and the customers are looking for you to help them sell it internally, all the way up the chain, even from the CFO is is explaining to somebody or has to document it somehow why exactly that decision was made.
00:02:49
Brian
Yeah.
00:02:56
Mark Whitesell
so This is kind of where the the thought process came about and why I thought that was that was a great selling model for for a way to get talk to a customer.
00:03:02
Brian
Yeah. Oh, I, I agree. And especially with, with is as complex as the buys have gotten and the number of folks that are involved to me, it makes even more sense, but it may also makes me wonder,
00:03:15
Brian
you know, reps, we're designed to, I'm gonna sell to you. And now I have to sell to you so you can go sell to someone else. Are they
Are Sales Reps Ready for Customer Enablement?
00:03:24
Brian
ready? Are they ready for that? Or what what do we need to be doing like an enablement to to give them what they need to be able to lead this new role?
00:03:34
Mark Whitesell
Right, yeah, I really don't think that sales reps get this model just just yet. I think good sales reps do.
00:03:38
Brian
Yeah.
00:03:39
Mark Whitesell
I don't think sales reps as as a whole really look at this and think about it in that sort of way. And every time I see a sales rep with ah ah a 50 slide corporate deck that they want to walk through the whole corporate deck, that's when I think they really don't understand what exactly this person wants from you.
00:03:55
Mark Whitesell
And and that's where you think about like, hey, well how yeah know what does this look like?
00:03:55
Brian
Yeah.
Role-Playing: From Seller to Enabler
00:03:59
Mark Whitesell
What is training somebody? What is training a sales rep? to understand what this looks like. You know, really, I think one of the best ways is looking at doing you know kind of role play exercises, like hey pretend like you're you're going to enable me.
00:04:12
Mark Whitesell
Having them think about it as enabling a customer, not selling to a customer. You're really trying to, this is really what's happening. You're enabling them to do something else.
00:04:20
Brian
Yeah.
00:04:21
Mark Whitesell
And and you start to think about the customer that, hey, this is not, you know, I'm not selling to them. What I want to do is give them all the tools that they need to do these types of things that I talked about, like the business value, like how am I going to explain the ROI? Some of them may not even understand how that ROI is even calculated and what types of ways did the CFO expect to see this. You know, maybe the first time that they're buying software on behalf of a company, they just don't even know what that process looks like. So I think when you become experienced and you enable a seller by doing those things, it really helps
00:04:54
Mark Whitesell
It helps the the customer understand the process to understand your process you get to learn their process a lot better because hopefully they're gonna be you know interactive there and I think I think explaining it from an enablement point of view like shifting the mindset like when you're training sellers and you're trying to enable sellers enable them in that mindset is hey this is this is what you're trying to do forget about the corporate deck they've already seen it they know
00:05:14
Brian
Yeah.
00:05:19
Mark Whitesell
They're not coming to you blindly. They know exactly what your company does. They've probably already read the Gardner reports and stuff like that. Because if you're talking to them, they've already done these things. So they they don't really necessarily want to hear the stuff that yeah I know the marketers out there are like, well, I really want to put my corporate deck slides in. But at the end of the day, they just want to hear what's what they the things they need and have the ability to present back the ROI up to chain so that they can actually get their product purchased and and installed.
00:05:47
Brian
that's it's ah ah It's a different mindset for the materials, right? So if we're if we're building materials that are designed for reps to be able to sell, and and now it's something we're handing off to a customer, in one sense, it it's got to be super simple and clean, I'm thinking, and and almost error proof, like a walking deck that's like, mark Mark, I'm going to give this to you and you can't screw it up. Just walk through here. It it is a different mindset, isn't it?
00:06:13
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, you know i think I think too, when you look at one of the, and I'll
00:06:14
Brian
e
Salio: A Tool for Customer-Led Demos
00:06:18
Mark Whitesell
mention a product name here that I like, a product called Salio.
00:06:21
Mark Whitesell
I really like Salio because what it enables you to do is have the customer demo your product for you to somebody else. And when I look at things like that, I think about, hey, if you can get to that point, I'm selling you software and you and I can show you how to demo our product to somebody else.
00:06:39
Mark Whitesell
You're going to do that. You're going to show it. and You're going to walk through it and you're going to say, wow, this is so easy. I learned this in just a few minutes and I was able to now show the product to other people. And I think that's kind of what the the holy grail of where you should hope to be as a. um um as a seller to get to where you can do that for customers.
00:06:56
Mark Whitesell
But I think that that enablement model where you make it look very easy and make it easy for them, like you want to find out, hey, what are people asking you for in the type of format that you need to push this stuff back to them?
00:07:03
Brian
Yeah.
00:07:05
Brian
and Yeah.
00:07:11
Mark Whitesell
Let me do that for you. Let me put all this together in that exact format and then and then give that to them. Yeah, I think one of the things that that that i like to say is that the the your customers are inherently lazy and that they don't wanna do extra work, especially on your behalf.
00:07:29
Brian
Yeah.
00:07:30
Mark Whitesell
Even partners, part of the same way, partners that you're you're going through, partners, they don't wanna, if your product's difficult to sell, they're not gonna sell your product for you. They're gonna make it easy for them, they're gonna make it easy for the customer.
00:07:43
Mark Whitesell
And I think that works out really well. And I think using products that make it easy to show the product, make it easy to explain the ROI and things like that, just go a long way.
00:07:53
Brian
Yeah. And i'm I'm thinking too, like you you talked about ah ROI, for example, or product demo. And this this is a bias of mine, so I'm leading the witness a little bit. I feel like customers in in my history, they're they're terrible at making decisions, right?
00:08:07
Brian
So in fact, that's why no decisions on the rise and and that sort of thing. and And I had someone a while back say to me, you know, customers are like veterinarians. There's a different animal walking into their office every day, yeah' right?
00:08:19
Brian
there They're buying something different.
00:08:21
Mark Whitesell
but
00:08:21
Brian
where We're like spinal neural surgeons. We've seen this software sourced a thousand times maybe. and And I feel like one of the areas of customer enablement that you're talking about is providing that decision support. Not necessarily how to buy my stuff, but how to buy this category. I'm wondering what your thoughts are about that.
Becoming a Trusted Advisor in Sales
00:08:43
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, that's a great point, too. When you think about the best sellers that you know, yeah the the best sales rep that you've ever come across, like what do they they all have something in common. That thing in common is that they can really relate with the the customers really well.
00:08:58
Mark Whitesell
and And when you talk about relating, that means, hey, I'm not coming in with this one thing, and I'm going to sell you this. like I want to be your trusted advisor. you know There's that word that told trusted advisor,
00:09:07
Brian
Yes. Yeah.
00:09:08
Mark Whitesell
you know that That concept has been around for a long time, but there's a reason for that. you know they they the the The great reps that I know all have really good relationships with the customers. And and that's something that when the customer feels like, hey, this guy's not coming here just, or or girl, they not coming here just to sell me this one product and and get out the door.
00:09:28
Mark Whitesell
But hey, they're trying to explain the whole market as a whole. Like, let me show you how to do business value on any product you're looking at or any type of concept.
00:09:35
Brian
Yes. Yes.
00:09:38
Mark Whitesell
That's so that's the one where that guy is going to call you again when he's got another project. Because he said, hey, last time this guy came around, he explained the whole market to me, where are the market's going, things like that and and the directions and and stuff. Yet again, it comes all back to the enablement. You're really trying to think about your your customers as somebody you're going to enable.
00:09:57
Mark Whitesell
With the information they need, whether it's to buy your product, or or whether it's to understand the market, or whether it's understand what the business value could be to them, where you know maybe you're selling in a new market altogether just explaining that.
00:10:00
Brian
yeah
00:10:10
Mark Whitesell
Hey, hey this is the business value of this complete shift. When i was at octa we sold something that was completely different we you know i came from rsa where everything was on prem i went to octa where everything was in the cloud and at that time early on at octa people were like oh who's this company that sounds like a vegetable that's coming in trying to sell me this product and move all of my stuff and trust them with everything in the cloud and this is really what it was like but you think about there was a lot of enablement that had to happen to to
00:10:21
Brian
Yeah. Yeah. Hmm.
00:10:30
Brian
Yeah.
00:10:37
Mark Whitesell
the customers just to be able to explain, hey, it's it's better in the cloud and this is why. Like this this is why your ah ROI is going to be better.
00:10:43
Brian
yeah
00:10:45
Mark Whitesell
This is why you you can you could do more with less and and those sort of things. So I think that's a really important topic. So yeah it's a great question. I think that's something that you really need to look at from that point of view too and say, hey, whats what what is the best way for me to enable this customer with all the information they
Developing Customers Through Tools and Knowledge
00:11:02
Mark Whitesell
need to make the right decision, whether it's us or not?
00:11:06
Brian
Yeah, and as we're as we're talking, if I were designing this, i mean I'd look at the buyer journey right and say at each step, whether it's ah ah ROI or it's demo or it or it's decision support, what what are the tools that that that we can be building for them? and and i you know I asked you earlier, are are reps ready? You answered the same way I feel, probably not.
00:11:28
Mark Whitesell
Yeah.
00:11:29
Brian
the the other thing I wonder if they're ready for is, is, you know, we, we've heard about executive sponsors and coaches, but this, this is someone you need to recruit and develop.
00:11:38
Brian
Right. So I feel like that before you can even give them the tool to go take forward for you. Right. i How, yeah.
00:11:45
Mark Whitesell
yeah
00:11:46
Brian
Do you think they're, they're ready for that? Do we need to get them ready for it?
00:11:50
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, that's that that's a good, I really like that term develop, like I'm trying to develop a customer, not necessarily sell to them. And that's something that's, right that's a really great, i really I'm going to keep that and use it again another time.
00:11:57
Brian
Yeah.
00:12:02
Mark Whitesell
but But I like that, you know, I'm trying to develop a customer base. And that's really important.
00:12:06
Brian
Yeah.
00:12:07
Mark Whitesell
And you're trying to do that, not by explaining your corporate deck, because, you know, they really don't care about that as much as the as what exactly value you could bring for them. And i so I think that's a really good way to look at it is is developing. And I don't think all our reps really do that sort of thing and think about it that way.
00:12:25
Brian
Yeah, it's and I'm going back to someone something you said a moment ago about sort of a paraphrase. It's like, it's not how to buy how to buy mine, but how to buy this category. And it just struck me that that's, that's the long view. That's the right way. That's the right relationship. And it's Jim Dickey.
00:12:43
Brian
one of our advisors and a lot of folks know him in this space. He, Jim said to me a while back, it's becoming less about what you're selling and more about how you're selling. And that keeps popping into my mind when someone says, well, you you said, I remember this person because they came in and and kind of taught me how to view the category.
00:13:02
Mark Whitesell
yeah it's Yeah, that's exactly right.
00:13:03
Brian
Yeah.
00:13:05
Mark Whitesell
It's funny, I've got a ah ah random a client that i that I dealt with a long time ago. and him and Me and this guy still have barbecue you know every so often.
00:13:15
Mark Whitesell
as somebody I haven't sold him a product in a long time, but but we got to be such good friends because I explained how this whole thing, how the whole market was going to work for him a long time ago.
00:13:17
Brian
Yeah.
00:13:24
Mark Whitesell
This is a few companies back. And I think that's something that that you really try and look for. Again, I go back to where I said the best sales rep they've ever known were really you this this whole consultative development type type resource for the customer. And when the customers look at you as a resource, they say,
00:13:43
Mark Whitesell
yeah This guy is not just a salesperson, but they're actually going to give me content that I can use, something that's going to be valuable for me in the whole process. Because you all know they're going to have to evaluate somebody else.
00:13:52
Brian
Yes. no
00:13:55
Mark Whitesell
Everybody wants to be the person to supply unsolicited RFP questions. I love doing that for customers. You send them an unsolicited ah RFP, they're going to use your questions 90% of the time, which is always the best case scenario, because chances are they haven't written one of those.
00:14:12
Mark Whitesell
And so you think about that, again, it's just an enablement tool, an unsolicited ah RFP that already has all the questions that somebody in your industry is going to ask. It's perfect, because then, like I said, they don't want to create them. No one's going to sit there and say, well, I'm not going to use this guy's questions, even though I just read them all. I'm going to pick different ones. that's That's a really important, you said, it's a tool. It's another tool. You're going to give them a bag of tools to use, whether it's the ability to demo your product, whether it's the ability to you create rfp questions that they should be asking and maybe there's a lot of you know obviously if you give them the questions you can lay traps for your competitors as well but i think that's important that you open their eyes to what they should be asking and again it's all goes back to hey how am i enabling this person to say the right things ask the right things and and then use those tools to sell to somebody else ah the cfo or whoever else
00:14:47
Brian
Yes, yep.
00:15:03
Brian
Yeah, well, it's you know as we're talking, um you know there's this theme of, at least for me, of moving from selling my thing to moving from helping you source stuff in this category, which which is is a really different role. And I think about some evidence of that. And and I didn't realize until we spoke, like we do some of this. We ask for access to do a diagnostic of current state, desired state. And and the pitch for that is, even if you don't choose us,
00:15:31
Brian
You're going to be able to evaluate whatever solution you choose against your current and desired state and see if it's filling those gaps. So I just realized that we do that. And to the point, to the point you made a moment ago, I was was talking to a potential customer the other day and and he was talking about this decision matrix thing that one of his competitors had done that, had given the client a weighted attribute decision matrix to say, this is how you choose a Me, my competitors, whoever, and the they there sales lead I was talking to was like, I was screwed at that moment.
00:16:02
Brian
You know, even even though it was like a category matrix, they had, you know, they had that guy's matrix in front of them. And, and yeah, I'm beginning. I mean, I've always agreed with this notion, but I'm getting more bought in as you and I are talking because there's some evidence that, that it's a differentiator.
00:16:02
Mark Whitesell
Right.
00:16:18
Mark Whitesell
No. Well, I like the business value assessment tool as well. That's something that gives somebody a tool that they can then use that where you're actually saying, all right, input your information.
00:16:23
Brian
Yeah.
00:16:29
Mark Whitesell
What are your costs for this? What are your costs for that? And input that and come out with a business value for each one of your use cases. is huge because, like you just said, you you saw it firsthand where somebody said, oh, a competitor brought me this tool and left that for me to use.
00:16:45
Mark Whitesell
That's something that that I think is huge too. And there's some really great companies out there now that that do a tremendous job at kind of the online business value model where you can input, like Ecosystems is the one that comes to mind that's got a great tool for for allowing a web-based entry of those type of things where you can say, all right, hey,
00:16:58
Brian
Yes.
00:17:06
Mark Whitesell
Use this for me, use it for somebody else, but hey, now you have a way to compare. And now you have a way to enter in yourre youre you know your different variables that it would make the difference in the end. I think that's huge.
00:17:15
Brian
So I wonder, my my last question for you, we've talked a little bit about salesperson readiness, right? And even is enablement ready to enable the salespeople and then get them ready?
Leading Customers to Understand Enablement
00:17:25
Brian
I'm wondering now about sort of customer readiness.
00:17:26
Mark Whitesell
ye
00:17:28
Brian
Is your perspective that customers are asking for these things more often or do we need to lead them more often to saying, you know, I have this capability for you?
00:17:38
Mark Whitesell
You know, what happens that that I've seen is that they start out generally, I guess it also depends on the experience of the person at the customer site, like how long they've been doing this. But a lot of times you'll go to them and they are not necessarily going to know that someone above them is going to ask for these sort of things.
00:17:56
Mark Whitesell
Like they're not going to realize the CFO is going to ask for these documents.
00:17:56
Brian
Right.
00:17:59
Mark Whitesell
And what situation you don't want to find yourself in is you pitch a product, you describe it, you do all these things. And then later on down the road, they find out that they needed all these different ah ah ROI metrics and things like that and business value metrics and all that stuff.
00:18:16
Mark Whitesell
And then they kind of blanketly ask everybody for it. This is why you want to lead with that sort of thing.
00:18:21
Brian
Yeah.
00:18:21
Mark Whitesell
You want to develop them into what you want them to be. You want them to be your champion.
00:18:25
Brian
Yeah.
00:18:26
Mark Whitesell
And by giving them the things up front and say, hey, your CFO is likely going to ask for this in this format. This is what this ah ah ROI looks like. This is exactly how you can explain this.
00:18:37
Mark Whitesell
And then here's a tool that you can compare everybody else with and then and see what that looks like.
00:18:41
Brian
Yeah.
00:18:42
Mark Whitesell
So I think ah ah you know to To go back to your original question, some are and some aren't. I think in general, there's probably a not not a lot of the customers are enabled with the right tools and understand what exactly that's going to look like and and end up getting blindsided way later in the sale than you want that to happen.
00:18:54
Brian
Right.
00:19:01
Mark Whitesell
and so
00:19:02
Brian
Well, yeah.
00:19:02
Mark Whitesell
you know
00:19:03
Brian
yeah and And you make me, when you talk about timing, you make me think of like the the teeing up of this idea. And again, going back to some of my own experience, customers are so used to being pitched that when we first started like moving to sort of, you know, we're doing like category consulting, whatever the heck we want to call this thing, customer enablement, that we found that we we had to.
00:19:22
Mark Whitesell
yeah
00:19:25
Brian
So to signal to the customer upfront, okay, four of you are going to be on a Zoom call with us next week. And and we found that people were showing up expecting a pitch. And then when we didn't do it, even though they hate pitches, they were somewhat frustrated.
00:19:37
Brian
So we even had, it gets to me, it gets down to that granular level detail of saying, this is, this is what's going to happen on this call next week.
00:19:43
Mark Whitesell
Yeah.
00:19:44
Brian
Just let you know before I show up because
Sales Engineers: Key to Successful Enablement
00:19:46
Brian
people shockingly disappointed.
00:19:47
Mark Whitesell
Right.
00:19:51
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, it's true. I think that it's there's certain expectations that are out there now. Customers, they're they're they're beaten down from uh, partners pitching, everybody's pitching, everybody's got all these products.
00:20:05
Mark Whitesell
They're being pitched every which way. If you go to conferences, you're, you're pitched with a thousand different things. And I think, uh, I think it's there a little bit of overload. And this is one of the reasons why I think leading this from the the sales engineering group, instead of the sales group, people already have their guard down.
00:20:16
Brian
Yeah.
00:20:24
Mark Whitesell
And I think there's a lot of people that are, that are in the,
00:20:25
Brian
Yes.
00:20:29
Mark Whitesell
that interact with sales engineers differently than they do sales reps and so therefore they're more open to taking information from sales engineering and taking that information and and treating it more of like a ah ah resource so they can you know reuse that for something else. I think it really opens up the door for things like the ability to for the customer to demo the product that you're trying to sell them.
00:20:51
Mark Whitesell
And that's something that yeah showing it easy, making it look easy is is is always key.
00:20:52
Brian
Yeah.
00:20:57
Mark Whitesell
And that the best way to make it look easy is to have the customer be able to show the product themselves.
00:20:57
Brian
Yeah.
00:21:04
Brian
Yep.
00:21:05
Mark Whitesell
And so I yeah like i think they're a lot more open to ah that from a sales engineer than from sales reps. But it's something that you know they should both be working hand in hand to have the same type of delivery method and model.
00:21:17
Mark Whitesell
And I think that'll work really well.
00:21:19
Brian
Yeah, I agree. You've been super generous with your time. I know, in fact, you're you're a pretty busy guy. you've got You've got a lot of irons in the fire. So yeah, this this is this is not a small shift.
00:21:27
Mark Whitesell
Yeah.
00:21:30
Brian
And so it's really fun to talk about. When you get into the execution of this, it's it's not a small shift. So it's fun to talk about. And I also think it's unbelievably relevant and current with what's happening in the market right now.
00:21:41
Brian
So I really appreciate you bringing this to the table and and highlighting some of it. So thank you.
00:21:47
Mark Whitesell
Yeah, thank you, Brian. I really appreciate the the time and the ability to to so do this. You can tell I'm passionate about it. I love doing this sort of thing. So like so thank you.
00:21:56
Brian
Thanks.